US Online Searches For ‘Facebook Account Hacked’ Surge 93% YTD, Almost Double 2020 Figure

Facebook has had its fair share of security mishaps over the years, and 2021 is no exception. This may explain why a record number of people in the United States are scouring the web for information about Facebook account hacks.

According to the data analyzed by the Atlas VPN team, average monthly searches for the keyword ‘Facebook account hacked’ have grown by a whopping 93% since last year. This year alone, US internet users have looked up the keyword 159,000 times compared to 82,300 times in the entire year of 2020.

If we look at the historical data, the searches for the keyword ‘Facebook account hacked’ have increased a whopping 188% since 2016 when they were at 55,208.

The keyword reached a record number of monthly searches in July of 2021 when it hit 40,000. The second most searches for the keyword were recorded in April of this year, totaling 28,000. Meanwhile, May 2021 occupies the third spot on the list with 25,000 searches.

Peaks in the keyword searches this year coincide with Facebook’s security crisis. In April, sensitive data, including phone numbers of 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries was scraped and posted on a hacking forum.

Ruth Cizynski, the cybersecurity researcher and writer at Atlas VPN, shares her thoughts on the situation:

“While Facebook had its fair share of security and data breaches in the past, Internet searches about hacked Facebook accounts only blew up this year. It suggests that people are getting more conscious about their cybersecurity.”

To read the full article, head over to: https://atlasvpn.com/blog/us-online-searches-for-facebook-account-hacked-surge-93-percent-ytd