This page contains a list of techreports, white papers, and other sources of statistics about the current state of computer security and privacy. Companies and other large organizations often publish reports of statistics involving security and privacy that represent the state of security from their vantage point. These reports are generally respected and can be used in academic publications to describe the current state of security and privacy. However, be aware that the reports only provide a view from that one organization. It is generally a good idea to look at statistics from several of the reports below to get a wider view of what different organizations are seeing.

Many of the reports below are published yearly or sometimes every quarter so more recent versions may exist than what is listed here.

Sources

General Security Reports

• Microsoft Digital Defense Report (Previously known as Microsoft Security Intelligence Report)
• Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report
• Google Transparency Report
• Akami Security Reports
• ENISA Threat Landscape Report
• NCSC: Cyber Security Breaches Survey (2020, 2019, 2018)
• CrowdStrike’s State of Application Security Report 2024
• Cloudflare’s Application Security Report 2024

Privacy

• Protecting Privacy in Practice:: The current use, development and limits of Privacy Enhancing Technologies in data analysis by the Royal Society, March 2019

Transparency Reports

• Meta Transparency reports mostly for Facebook and Instagram. WhatsApp notably missing.

Phishing

• Proofpoint’s State of the Phish - Proofpoint offers phishing training, and testing. Techreport is derived from data from their products as well as a survey they run across multiple countries
• Earthweb: How many Phising Emails are sent daily in 2022

Government reports

• UK Digital Consumer Index 2019 - Includes measures of “Being Safe and Legal Online” and “Handling Information and Content”
• UK Finance Fraud – The Facts 2021
• UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey (2022)