It’s Halloween! If you thought haunted houses, creepy costumes and ghost tales were scary— think again. Before you tell you our incredible money-saving Halloween special, brace yourself for our Seven Spooky Internet Facts Infographic!

In honor of Halloween and the end of October, Cyber Security Awareness month, here are 7 Spooky Internet Facts to scare your socks off. From Internet censorship to online vulnerabilities and security breaches, we’ve got lots of spooky fact surprises. (And remember to scroll to the end to find out our spectacular Halloween discount!)

Get ready…

1. Over 49% of the World’s Population Still Doesn’t Have Internet Access

In a world of 7.5 billion people, over 3.67 billion still don’t have access to one of the world’s greatest, 21st century-defining resources. Even worse, much of this offline population lives in poor, rural settings with poor infrastructure, healthcare and education. When considering the Internet behavior patterns of the Western world, it’s surprising that so many are still disconnected to the Internet. The Millenium Development Goals set by the UN aims to put the remaining world’s population online by 2020, and while a challenge, it is certainly a worthwhile goal.

2. 99% of Public Wi-Fi Hotspots Are Easy Targets for Snoopers & Hackers

Although public Wi-Fi may be super convenient, beware: nearly all Public WiFi hotspots leave you vulnerable to hackers. That’s because these hotspots are unsecured or have widely shared passwords. As the saying goes, “Nothing in life comes free.” And when it comes to Public WiFi this wisdom certainly rings true.

When you browse over Public Wi-Fi, cyber thieves can see exactly what you do on unencrypted sites (sites without https at the beginning of the URL address) as well as which encrypted sites you visit. Hackers can also take advantage of the lack of security to install malicious software on your computer, which they can use to capture confidential information like usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and email exchanges (yikes!).

If you do choose to browse on Public WiFi, exercise extreme caution with your personal details or better yet, use SaferVPN’s automatic WiFi security feature to instantly protect your data. Thankfully there are simple solutions to make sure you’re never a victim of these creepy Internet facts!

3. Authorities in 38 Countries Made Arrests Based on Social Media Posts over the past Year

Access to the Internet is not the only concern, free and open access to the Internet is at risk as well. Year by year, both the number of countries censoring the Internet and those who are subject to these restrictions have increased. In 2016, the Freedom on the Net Report found that two-thirds of all Internet users live in countries where criticism of the government, military, or ruling family are subject to censorship. While governments have tightened their grip on messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram, social media users have faced “unprecedented penalties, as authorities in 38 countries made arrests based on social media posts over the past year” according to the report.

In fact, 27 percent of all Internet users live in countries where people have been arrested for publishing, sharing, or merely “liking” content on Facebook. It’s no wonder that Governments in 15 countries temporarily shut down access to the entire Internet or mobile phone networks, sometimes solely to prevent users from disseminating information through social media. These are very scary Internet facts…

If you find these numbers frightening, there is a way to help. At SaferVPN we’ve partnered with Movements.org and Advancing Human Rights to launch #UnblockTheWeb, a movement that aims to provide dissidents in closed societies around the world with anonymous, unrestricted access to the web.

4. Ransomware: 64 Percent of Americans Are Willing to Pay $1,077 Ransom, Compared to 34 Percent Globally

According to the Symantec threat report, “Cyber attackers revealed new levels of ambition in 2016, a year marked by extraordinary attacks, including multi-million dollar virtual bank heists, overt attempts to disrupt the US electoral process by state-sponsored groups, and some of the biggest distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on record powered by a botnet of Internet of Things (IoT) devices.” Additionally, the average ransom spiked 266 percent, with criminals demanding an average of $1,077 per victim, up from $294 a year earlier.

These Internet facts, along with the global rise in ransomware attacks, it’s more important than ever for individuals to stay educated on how to prevent these types of attacks from happening.

5. 61.5% of Internet Traffic Is Not Generated by Humans, but by Bots like Malware and Google–30.5% of Them Are ‘Bad Bots’

If you thought humans were the only ones snooping around on the Internet, think again. The Huffington Post reports that nearly two-thirds of all web visits are made by Internet bots, a name given to a wide range of software applications that crawl the web. Slightly more than half of non- human traffic comes from search engines and other ‘good’ bots which do things like index pages and make the Internet more easily sortable for humans.

However, according to the study by Incapsula, the remaining 30.5% of non-human traffic is compromised of ‘bad bots’. These bots are responsible for posting spam comments, stealing data and distributing malware. One of the most sophisticated, TDSS bots, infected PCs to generate fake page views then sold for advertising. For anyone worried about artificial intelligence taking over, it looks like when it comes to Internet traffic, that day has already come!

6. Ransomware Attacks on Business Happen Every 40 Seconds

Symantec’s 2017 Internet Security Threat Report revealed many frightening Internet facts, one of the most alarming being that more than $3 billion has been stolen from businesses in the past three years.

While site administrators struggle to properly secure their websites, cybercriminals can take advantage of the vulnerabilities in legitimate websites to infect users! However, many of these attacks only require a simple email to get the ransomware rolling. “Targeted spear-phishing campaigns, especially in the form of Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, rather than the mass-mailing phishing campaigns of old, are now favored by attackers. This is reflected in the drop in phishing rates, which fell from 1 in 1,846 emails to 1 in 2,596 emails.” according to the report.

Want to know an even scarier Internet fact? “More than 4,000 ransomware attacks have occurred every day since the beginning of 2016. That’s a 300% increase over 2015, where 1,000 ransomware attacks were seen per day.” – Barkly

7. Only 31% of People Globally Have Used VPNs

According to a survey released by the Global Web Index, much of the Internet population still doesn’t use VPNs to protect themselves online. This is quite scary because, in the face of all the spooky web bots and cyber thieves out there, a VPN is an easy, sure-fire way to ensure complete security and anonymity while browsing the web.

When you connect to a VPN (Virtual Private Network) you are able to set up a private, secure, encrypted connection to another network. So, for instance, when you log in to SaferVPN and connect to one of our global servers, our server’s anonymous IP address, rather than your IP address, is what faces the world. This disguises your actual location, name and Internet service provider and makes it appear as if you were browsing from that location, while also creating a tunnel for your data so it can’t be intercepted by third parties.

With SaferVPN you can prevent a number of spooky virtual threats including identity theft, data leaks, Internet Service Provider tracking and other third parties such as government entities, hackers, and Internet Service providers.

Using a VPN offers more than just security and privacy– you can also enjoy unlimited access to all your favorite geo-restricted content and save big on travel bookings by avoiding price discrimination.

Try Us For Free this Halloween!

Now that you’re probably scared out of your wits, let’s cheer you up with a special, SaferVPN FREE TRIAL!

If you’re tired of the Internet tricks and ready for a treat this Halloween, try SaferVPN for free now or sign up for a subscription. With a 30-day money back trial, what do you have to lose?!