Bangladesh has seen the lowest data-breach density in Asia with 06 breached email accounts per 100 internet users, according to a global study.
Cyber security company Surfshark conducted the study on countries with the highest data breach rates worldwide.
Countries were divided into six groups according to the breached email accounts per 100 users (breach density).
The study, however, did not include countries with less than 500,000 internet users or internet usage penetration lower than 10 per cent.
The study finds that Iran ranks first in Asia and globally (231 breached accounts per 100 users).
On a continental level, Asia has the second-lowest breached email address rates with 12 breached accounts in 2021, following Africa (04 emails per 100 users).
"Looking at the data breaches landscape in 2021, we see that 71.7 per cent of the analyzed countries have a lower breach density than the global average. It shows that hackers usually target particular countries such as Russia and the US more than others," said Agneska Sablovskaja, Data Researcher at Surfshark.
"However, 06 per cent of all analyzed countries have an extremely high data breach density. To put this into perspective, more than half of internet users in countries such as the US, Iran, Israel, the UAE, and Qatar got breached in 2021."
While Africa and Asia have the lowest breach rates worldwide, North America has the highest, with 01 in 02 internet users being breached in 2021. This number is three times higher than the global average.
Interestingly, data breaches are not the one and only way for criminals to get access to victims' information.
According to Surfshark's study, phishing continues to be the most common cybercrime for the second year in a row.
In 2020, there were a total of 241,343 phishing victims. However, on average, phishing victims lost the least amount of money ($136 per victim), while people who fell victim to investment fraud lost the most ($70,811 per victim on average).
At the same time, investment fraud had the highest financial impact in total on its victims. The least impactful online crime was the Denial of Service attacks - only around 1,000 victims reported this crime with an average loss of $197.
"As the geopolitical tensions grow, we might see more cyber warfare and 0day spyware similar to Pegasus," explains Aleksandr Valentij, Security Officer at Surfshark.
In total, cybercrime claimed at least 6,502,323 victims and $26,116,000,000 in losses over the 21-year period.
