Clearance Rate Up – 46,000 Reports: Ongoing Cybercrime Boom

All in all, it was a difficult process, “but there were still successes”, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) said on Tuesday at the presentation of the “Cybercrime Report 2021”.

Speaking of crime statistics presented in February, which he described as “guidelines” for the Secretary of the Interior, Karner recalled that overall crime had fallen in many areas and detection rates had risen, “but there are challenges such as extremism, human smuggling crime and, as a third area, which have been noted, precisely that of cybercrime”.

Internet fraud is the most common crime
The most common offense here is internet fraud, which accounts for half of all reports, “enhanced by shopping behavior in times of pandemic” would have seen a drastic increase here, Karner called goods ordered online that were not delivered and around as a “classic case” 20 percent of these ads.

“Never in the past has the chance of being attacked digitally been as great as in 2021,” said Finance State Secretary Florian Tursky (ÖVP). And this opportunity will continue to grow: “By 2025, more than 75 billion devices worldwide will be connected to the Internet via the Internet of Things.”

He therefore wants to impose “digital glasses” on Austria, so that in the future both private individuals and entrepreneurs can take advantage of the opportunities of digitization, but also better assess the dangers of the internet. “Here we need a social approach to raise awareness. I see it as my job to spread this knowledge.”