Last Year, 180,000 Cybercrime Cases... 'Internet Fraud' Tops with 136,000 Cases

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] Last year, domestic cybercrimes such as internet fraud and cyber financial crimes occurred more than 180,000 times, showing a significant increase compared to the previous year.

According to the '2019 Cyber Threat Analysis Report' published by the National Police Agency on the 13th, a total of 180,499 cybercrimes occurred last year, an increase of 20.7% compared to the previous year.

By type, information and communication network-related crimes such as internet fraud, phishing, and smishing accounted for the majority with 151,916 cases (84.2%). This was followed by illegal content-related crimes such as production and distribution of sexual exploitation materials with 24,945 cases (13.8%), and information and communication network intrusion crimes such as hacking and distribution of malicious programs with 3,638 cases (2.0%).

By crime category, internet fraud accounted for 136,074 cases (75.4%), cyber defamation for 16,633 cases (9.2%), cyber financial crimes for 10,542 cases (5.8%), and cyber gambling for 5,346 cases (3.0%). In particular, cyber financial crimes increased by 85.7% compared to the previous year, with the rise in phishing crimes cited as the main cause.

The police anticipate that this year, crimes related to virtual currency, as well as cybercrimes involving the dark web and deepfake technology, will become more advanced and sophisticated. A police official stated, "We will strengthen intelligence gathering related to new types of cybercrimes and utilize threat information and correlation analysis to establish prevention policies and support investigations."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.