Some 539,000 Israelis aged 20 and over (8.6%) reported being victims of online crimes in 2024, according to data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Monday for National Safe Internet Surfing Week.
This accounts for over half of the people aged 20 and over who reported being victims of any crime (15%).
More men than women in the over-20 demographic were victims of cyberbullying and shaming, with 52.6% being men and 47.4% women.
Of the thousands of online crimes reported in 2024, over half of them involved theft and/or distribution of information (52.4%), with a higher likelihood of women being the victims.
Women were also more likely to be the victims of crimes involving impersonation and/or identity theft, which accounted for 30.8% of reported cybercrimes.
The age groups most likely to fall victim to online crimes, regardless of gender, were 45–54 (11.1%, or about 113,000 people) and 35–44 (10.2%, or about 122,000 people), while the lowest rate was among those over 65 (4.7%).
Generally, men were reported to be more likely to be victims of online crime, with the exception of the age group 35–44, where 8.7% of men reported victimization compared to 11.8% of women.
When divided by religious demographic, Jewish and other religions reported victimization at a rate six times higher than Arabs.
In Jewish communities, the highest rate of victimization was in the modern orthodox community (12.1%), while the lowest rate was among the ultra-Orthodox (5.1%).
Those with higher levels of education fell victim to cybercrimes more often
A majority of those victimized by online crime were individuals with master’s and doctoral degrees, with crime rates lowering with less formal education.
While those with high school degrees were most likely to fall victim to crimes involving theft and/or the distribution of information, those with advanced degrees were most likely to be targeted by crimes involving impersonation or identity theft.
According to the CBS, over 90% of victims did not actually report the crimes to the Israel Police, though about 40% of those who didn't said they had reported the crime to a separate authority instead.
About 13% of victims who chose not to report the crime cited the police’s inability to handle such cases, and nearly 10% said they did not feel the need to report what they considered a minor incident to police.
Some 42% of households in Israel have children aged 2-18, and 6.8% of those households have been the victim of at least one online crime. Theft, violence or threats of violence, sexual harassment, sexual offenses, online crime, and/or cyberbullying and shaming were prominent among those crimes.
In a majority of households where children aged 6–17 experienced victimization, it had occurred over the previous 12 months.
The rate of children victimized by online crime in Jewish households was 1.1%, while the estimate for Arab households could not be retrieved by the CBS due to the small number of cases.
Separately from the thousands who have already been victimized by online crimes, some 25.3% of adults aged 20 and over said they feared “to a very great extent” or “to a great extent” that they would become victims in the future.
Members of Arab society were the least afraid of falling victim to online crimes, at 15.7% compared to 27.5% for Jews and others.