An overwhelming majority of consumers, three quarters (75 per cent) and 76 per cent, want tech companies to do more to prevent romance scammers on their platforms.

Men make up a greater share of total romance scam reports, accounting for 60 per cent in terms of volume and 57 per cent in terms of value of claims.

A third (32 per cent) of those targeted by a romance scam said the scammer created a false sense of urgency.

For romance scam victims aged 61 and over, the average loss increases to £19,000.

The top reasons romance scammers gave for needing money included fake emergencies (32 per cent), travel costs such as flights and visas (26 per cent), and medical bills and expenses (26 per cent).

The average amount lost to a romance scam in 2024 was £8,000. This is up from just under £5,800 in 2023.

When they realised what had happened, those targeted by a romance scam described feeling angry (36 per cent), embarrassed (25 per cent), and vulnerable (15 per cent).

Over a quarter (27 per cent) of romance scam victims said they were feeling lonely when the scammer contacted them.

Exploits continue to be the most common initial infection vector (33%).

Consumer discretionary was the second most targeted sector in March, with 124 attacks. This was a significant decrease of 55% (278 attacks) for consumer discretionary compared to February.

AI now pulls indicators of compromise (IOCs) in as quickly as 10 seconds.

Akira and RansomHub shared second place of most active threat group in March, with 62 attacks each.

Industrials regained the top spot for the most targeted sector in March. It accounted for 25% of all attacks in March and experienced 150 attacks in March.

8% of threat groups were motivated by espionage.

55% of threat groups active in 2024 were financially motivated, showing a steady increase.

Global median dwell time was 5 days when adversaries notified (notably in ransomware cases).

80% of survey respondents cited fostering a strong security culture within their organization as their top challenge that could prevent their security program from being successful in 2025.

Of the 2,869 security issues analysed in Agentic AI projects, the majority were API-related (65%).

High tech (10.6%) was the 3rd most targeted industry.

Healthcare (9.3%) was the 5th most targeted industry.