Cybercrime: Healthcare & Crypto Hit Hard, Scams on the Rise

Every year seems to be “the worst ever” regarding financial losses resulting from cybercrime. Yet, the next year always presents worse numbers. From what we’re able to gather, 2024 and the start of 2025 were a worrying period not only when it comes to cyberattacks. Hackers were able to steal — from both companies and citizens — like never before, and went as far as to cause damning issues outside the digital world, like serious power outages. Read this article and delve into some major recent hacks and cybercrime trends.

Last year, there was a surge in ransomware and DDoS attacks, and cybercriminals are now turning to the disruption of healthcare systems all around the globe and engaging in cyber warfare, which refers to hacker groups getting involved in war conflicts. Online scams are also hitting new records, with hackers getting more creative and using technologies such as AI. 2024 was a year of heavy capital loss for both companies and individuals, mainly caused by data breaches and online scams — the 1,03 trillion USD lost to the latter rivals with the GDP of some countries. However, the most striking is probably the Bybit hack that took place this February — with 1,5 billion USD stolen, this was the biggest digital hack to date.

Cybersecurity companies and consultancy firms publish yearly reports on the biggest cybersecurity threats and incidents that took place the year before, and those are usually only picked up by tech journalists or professionals. However, recently, there have been a lot of cyber-related attacks hitting newsrooms globally.

Hacktivism & Cyber Warfare on the Rise
Hacktivism — hacking in the name of activism — was on the rise, with 2024 reporting several attacks on governmental infrastructures and strategic sites. The most relevant ones are, of course, related to the Russia–Ukraine conflict, and the list features pro-Russia hacktivists disrupting Ukranian facilities and scientific institutes in Japan, France, and the UK. Cybervolk and NoName057(16) are two of the most well-known hacktivist groups — and they keep causing damage, as reported in this news from February 2025.

However, it’s not all about the war conflict. The attack of an Indian hacktivist group on the Maldives after tensions rose between the governments of both countries, in January last year, is a good example of how hacktivists are taking the internet to make a point. Most of these so-called “activism” campaigns come in the form of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks — flooding a server with the intent of making it unavailable to its users, or in simple terms, taking it offline until the demands are met.

Healthcare Got Hit Hard
One of the most notorious cases making the headlines last year was the Change Healthcare ransomware, perpetrated by the ALPHV/BlackCat group. The US healthcare payment provider ended up paying the criminals 22 million USD dollars to have its systems restored. However, it wasn’t just the company’s wallet that was affected: sensitive information of more than 100 million American citizens was leaked in connection to the attack, which means there might be further consequences related to it. In May 2024, Ascension, the US’s leading healthcare system, also suffered a hack that caused several disruptions across various states. According to a report from February, Health-ISAC tracked 458 ransomware events in the North American healthcare industry alone.

Healthcare seems to be the hackers’ new favorite dish, but the US isn’t the only affected country. And it isn’t only about money anymore — hackers act with the intent of stealing with no regard for the consequences.

The Australian and British authorities were also busy with attacks on medical prescriptions provider MediSecure and the NHS, respectively. In Australia, 12,9 million people were affected by the attack, and their information was stolen to be sold on the dark web. The ransomware on Synnovis, a supplier of pathology services, has also caused serious delays in blood transfusions and test results at several UK hospitals.

Loss of Capital

Crypto
There were several crypto hacks over the years that are worth mentioning. However, the Bybit one just made the top of the list by becoming what researchers say is the biggest crypto heist of all time. According to the centralized exchange’s co-founder and CEO, Ben Zhou, the hackers gained access to an Ethereum account and transferred around 1,5 billion USD to an unknown address. He also reassured Bybit’s clients that their money was secure: “Bybit is solvent even if this hack loss is not recovered, all of clients assets are 1 to 1 backed, we can cover the loss”, Zhou posted on X. According to Elliptic, the attack can be traced by to the North Korean Lazarus Group. The criminals used social engineering and phishing techniques to compromise the company’s user interface and have cold wallet signers sign in malicious transactions without noticing. Elliptic attributes the staggering loss, since 2017, of more than six billion USD to North Korea-related hackers.

A Chainlysis report from December 2024 shows an increase of 21% in the volume of stolen funds, which amounted to 2,2 billion USD just last year. Like in previous years, DeFi was the most affected sector, but 2024 saw a different pattern: Centralized exchanges and services also took a hit, with DMM Bitcoin and WazirX being hacked for 305 million USD and 235 million USD, respectively. The same report shows that private key compromises accounted for the largest share of stolen crypto in 2024, at 43.8%.

Companies
According to an IBM report, the average cost of a data breach hit a new record of 4,88 million US dollars, which is more than in previous years. When talking about cybersecurity breaches, the loss of capital refers to the money companies lost, with business disruption and post-breach measures after the hit. The same document states that “75% of the increase in average breach costs […] was due to the cost of lost business and post-breach response activities”, which means that preparing for these scenarios is much needed and can greatly decrease the spending associated with it.

Individuals
However, the most staggering numbers regarding loss of capital for individuals come from online scamming. Regarding how cybercrime — specifically scams — affected individuals around the world, GASA and Feedzai’s report presents wary stats: 1,03 trillion USD were lost to scams in one year (November 2023–November 2024) globally. The country where citizens were most affected was the US, with the average capital loss hitting 3,520 USD per person. However, the countries where scams had the most impact are Pakistan, Kenya, and South Africa. It cost them a significant chunk of their GDP: 4,2%, 3,6%, and 3,4%, respectively. When it comes to types of scams, shopping and investment are still the top choices for criminals, either by email or phone messages.

Several scam cases have hit the news lately, but one of the most peculiar is probably the one of a French woman duped by a con man using a deep-fake AI version of Brad Pitt. This case got so much international attention that an actor’s representative stated how serious these attacks are becoming and what a shame it is that criminals take advantage of the connection between celebrities and their fans. The victim ended up losing a total of 850,000 USD in the process.

AI’s Role in the Rise of Cybercrime
Like most tools, artificial intelligence can also be used for good and evil — and the numbers prove exactly that. Foreign hackers have been using platforms like ChatGPT — that allow anyone to write grammatically correct emails — to deceive just about anyone, from wealthy elderly ladies to entrepreneurs. Most tech specialists believe the rise of generative AI is directly connected to the increase in phishing incidents. SlashNext’s report from March 2024 states worrying numbers: a 341% increase from October 2023.

Although cybersecurity companies are using AI to find new ways of protecting the world, this powerful technology is also being manipulated by hackers with the intent of fine-tuning their attacks.

Industry Disruption
Sadly, hackers aren’t just worried about stealing money anymore. “Hacktivists” have been more active than ever, and taking matters into the real world. Besides shutting down entire communications services, they’ve disrupted the service in power plants and other major industrial hubs that play a crucial role in the life of entire communities. If you’re interested in knowing more about this, read this article on the need to secure OT systems.

How to fight back?
There’s no magic pill to solve the issue of cybercrime. Companies and cybersecurity specialists have to insist on educating individual users and workers on the risks of leaving their devices digitally unprotected, learning new ways to prevent these attacks from happening, and better securing devices.

This Internet of Things (IoT) brings new challenges, as it’s not only about printers and washing machines anymore. Major industries like logistics, communications, and healthcare are welcoming AI and internet connection at a quick pace, which means there has to be more awareness and knowledge on how to also protect these new devices and technologies.

Allianz has published a report on the most important global business risks for 2025, and cyber incidents are the respondents’ top 1 concern, with a lot of them viewing AI as a threat. Cited in the document, a representative of Allianz Commercial believes that “for many companies, cyber risk, exacerbated by the rapid development of AI, is a big risk overriding everything else”. The company’s stats make for an interesting read on people’s expectations for this year.

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