Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: Mathieu Thomasset / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 6:20 p.m., March 5, 2024

The Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr site published this Tuesday its annual report on online threats which weighed on individuals and businesses in 2023. Fake bank advisor scams, “phishing” and even account hacking were particularly suffered over the past year. 

A rather worrying state of affairs.

The Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr site, an action system against online threats, published a report on Tuesday taking stock of the strategies developed by crooks to attack your security on the Internet.

If the number of visitors on the platform - 3.7 million - has rather stabilized in 2023, requests for insistence have, for their part, increased significantly, indicates the report.

Around 13% for individuals and 17% for communities.

On the top step of the podium of threats, we find “phishing”.

A technique which aims to attract the Internet user to a fraudulent site, from an SMS or an e-mail, to force them to provide personal data including bank details.

The most common attack consists of tricking the Internet user into believing that he has committed a traffic offense, thereby encouraging him to pay a fine.

False child pornography is the second most common form of phishing.

In recent months, false SMS messages relating to the delivery of imaginary packages have also proliferated.

Theft and identity theft up 93%

This type of cybercrime affected 38% of requests for assistance from individuals (compared to 26.9% for communities and 21.2% for businesses).

A threat that is increasingly difficult to thwart due to the ever-increasing level of sophistication of attacks. 

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Account hacking, up 22% compared to 2022, takes its place on the second step of this sad podium, supplemented by false technical support, which consists of scaring the victim by making them believe that a serious computer failure affects one of his devices.

A while away from the top places, malware or viruses are making a remarkable comeback and are ranked in fourth place. 

Although they do not represent the majority of requests for assistance on Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr, fake bank advisor scams are presented, by the government service, as “the phenomenon of 2023”.

They are indeed experiencing a spectacular increase of 78% compared to 2022. Victims are thus led, by a scammer on the line, to validate transactions on their online banking application.

However, bank card fraud (+87%) or theft and identity theft (+93%) are growing even more rapidly.