Today is April Fools Day and (once again) here are 2026 cybersecurity statistics you need to know! All of them are real stats except for one!

These 2026 cybersecurity statistics reflect statistics on data breaches and cybercrime. For the sixth(!) year in a row, I’m testing your knowledge. Can you figure out the one stat where I’m just “fooling”?  Answer at the bottom!

I’ve provided links to the stat sources so you could technically “cheat” and figure out the fake stat, but don’t be a fool! Guess first, then check out the sources.

Here are the 2026 cybersecurity statistics you need to know:

1. Ransomware is present in around 44% of all data breaches, a dramatic increase of 12% year-on-year.
2. Ransomware downtime costs healthcare companies an average of $1.9 million per day.
3. The financial sector has suffered more than 20,000 cyberattacks between 2004 and 2023, which has resulted in $12 billion in losses.
4. Government data breaches nearly tripled, from 47 in 2020 to 128 in 2024, with the steepest jump between 2022 (74) and 2023 (99).
5. Small businesses experienced a 46% cyberattack rate in 2025 with incidents occurring every 11 seconds.
6. Across 7 major incidents since 2021, social media platforms have exposed 9.4 billion records — averaging one major breach every 9 months.
7. Credential stuffing is the #1 attack method (31%), fueled by 94% of passwords being reused across accounts.
8. Major platform breaches have exposed over 9.4 billion records across Facebook, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok since 2021.
9. More than 1.35 billion people were affected by data compromises, including data breaches, data leaks and exposure in 2025.
10. Every day, the AV-TEST Institute registers over 450,000 new malware programs and potentially unwanted applications.
11. Phishing is the most common form of cybercrime, with an estimated 3.4 billion spam emails sent every day.
12. AI vulnerabilities are accelerating at an unprecedented pace: 87% of people identify AI-related vulnerabilities as the fastest-growing cyber risk over the course of 2025.
13. The federal government shutdown in the fall of 2025 created an 85% increase in U.S. government cyberattacks.
14. Financial losses from account takeover (ATO) fraud were projected to hit $17 billion by 2025
15. Cyberattacks targeting Android mobile devices were up 387% in the energy sector last year.

So, what do you think?  Do any of these stats surprise you?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Which stat is the fake one?

The

Answer

Is

This

One:

It’s #9! Yes, more than 1.35 billion people were affected by data compromises, including data breaches, data leaks and exposure – but that happened in 2024, not 2025! Improvement, for once! 🤯

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