Cybercrime Number of fraud attempts by cyber criminals has risen sharply

The number of fraud attempts by cyber criminals has risen rapidly, and the tool of the trade is often the telephone. By the end of October 2024, the responsible federal office received a voluntary report of an incident every eight and a half minutes.

In the first half of 2024, 34,789 cyber incidents were reported to the Federal Office for Cyber Security (FOCS). This was almost twice as many as in the first half of 2023, as the Bacs announced in its half-year report on Thursday. Around two thirds of these incidents were attempted fraud, often by telephone.

False calls to authorities were conspicuous: In 13,730 cases, fraudsters pretended to be employees of public authorities. They tried to get their victims to install remote access software.

Phishing is also on the rise, mainly with fake notifications about parcel deliveries or refunds. Chain phishing is currently widespread: phishing messages are immediately sent to the entire address book from a compromised mailbox.

SDA