Digital crime has risen sharply

The threat is real. Crime takes place offline, but increasingly also online. In 2024, digital crime – or cybercrime – comprised almost 60,000 offences. In total, criminals commit over half a million offences per year in Switzerland.

More and more phishing

Over 90% of digital crime falls into the area of cyber economic crime, which in turn is dominated by cyber fraud with more than 42,000 offences. Particularly striking is the increase in phishing attacks (+56.2%) and in the misuse of online payment systems, prepaid cards or someone else's identity (+104.8%).

The increase in phishing is striking – the attempt to get employees to disclose their passwords via email or another communication channel. A total of 5,390 offences were recorded here. In parallel, 32 percent more cases of hacking with stolen access credentials were recorded.

Low clearance rate

Declining, on the other hand, are ransomware attacks, which with 174 offences are at the top of the malware statistics. However, only 3 percent of all ransomware attacks are solved. DDoS attacks have also increased (+76%).

The highest digital shares of conventional offences are found in fraud (80%), money laundering (88.1%), identity misuse (70%), unauthorized data acquisition (82.2%), unauthorized intrusion into a data processing system (80.6%), data damage (83.1%) and, far behind, «fraudulent misuse of a data processing system» (55.1%). Looking at the clearance rates shows how easy the digital criminals have it: only just under 19 percent of all digital offences are solved.

This makes the reinforcement of one's own security infrastructure all the more important. With Microsoft 365 E5 Security, a consistent focus of management on security, regular employee training and the farewell to passwords. Passkeys provide good protection against phishing. Our video explains how.