The report, published on the official website of the company, based in the northern city of Bologna, highlights that the United States, Russia, Germany, and France lead cybercrime on a global level, while the United Kingdom comes in at number sixth.

The latest data from the CRIF’s Cyber Observatory also show that Europe is the continent most affected by the exchange of illicit credit card data, with a significant increase of 107 percent compared to the previous semester.

In the 2024 first half, 90.7 percent of Italian users received at least one warning from the so-called dark web, which is often associated with illegal activities, such as drug trafficking and data breaches.

Among the common characteristics are that the age groups most affected are those aged 51-60, with 25.8 percentage points of the total, followed by those aged 41-50, with 25.5 percentage points, while 64 percent are male, the analysis stated.

CRIF’s Executive Director Beatrice Rubini said: “The data collected in the first half of 2024 confirms an alarming trend: increasingly sophisticated and personalized attacks on victims’ profiles allow personal data to be stolen and shared on the dark web.”

Rubini pointed out that ¨these cyber-attacks aim to gain economic advantage to the detriment of the victims themselves, which underlines the importance of maintaining a high level of vigilance whenever we are asked to provide personal data and adopting protection tools.”

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