SurfShark researchers take stock of the data breaches that occurred over the past year. Worldwide, experts counted 5.6 billion hacked accounts in twelve months. To achieve this result, SurfShark relies on "data collected by independent partners from 29,000 publicly accessible databases".
France, 4th country most affected by cyberattacks
France continues to be one of the favorite targets of cybercriminals. According to SurfShark, France is the fourth country most affected by hackers, just behind the United States, Russia and China. In fifth place is Germany. Europe has also become the region most affected by breaches, with 1.6 billion compromised accounts, or 29% of all breaches worldwide. Last year, the number of attacks in Europe increased by 13%.
The number of data breaches has exploded in France in particular over the past year. SurShark recorded 14 times more data breaches concerning French people in 2024 than in 2023. France suffered an impressive annual total of 146.4 million compromised accounts, compared to only 10.8 million a year earlier.
Among the most grandiose breaches of the past year were the Free hack, the SFR hack, and the France Travail data breach. As a result of these incidents, the personal data of a large proportion of French people ended up in the hands of cybercriminals on black markets, such as BreachForums.
In France, the risk of hacking is particularly high, with 2,263 compromised accounts per 1,000 inhabitants. Each inhabitant could have had several of their accounts exposed. For comparison, the United Kingdom is much less affected, with 847 hacked accounts per 1,000 inhabitants, almost three times less than in France.
A major target since 2004
SurfShark data reveals that France has been the most targeted Western European country since 2004. In 20 years, France has recorded "664.5 million compromised accounts, 197.3 million unique emails and 484 million exposed passwords". This ocean of accessible data poses serious threats to the French. On average, each French person has been exposed to a data breach around 10 times in their life.
By exploiting sensitive data, such as email addresses, recycled passwords or bank details, it is possible to orchestrate a host of cyberattacks. This is why it is urgent to "adopt strict cybersecurity measures", such as "complex passwords" and "two-factor authentication", believes Maud Lepetit.
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