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Current Affairs

Hong Kong tech crimes are dropping. So why is hacking becoming more lucrative?

The number of reported technology-based crimes in Hong Kong dipped over the past year, but financial losses from hacking more than doubled to HK$62.6 million…

By Samantha Johnson / May 13, 2026

The number of reported technology-based crimes in Hong Kong dipped over the past year, but financial losses from hacking more than doubled to HK$62.6 million (US$8 million), prompting police to urge companies to bolster their cybersecurity checks.

Carmen Leung Oi-lam, senior superintendent of the force’s cybersecurity and technology crime bureau, attributed the surge in money lost, despite the overall drop in technology cases, to several high-value cyberattacks on financial institutions and cryptocurrency platforms.

“Even though [hacking and ransomware] cases may seem to only take up 0.3 per cent of all technology crime, each case can cause a serious impact on the organisations affected,” Leung warned.

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Police recorded 31,571 technology crime cases in 2025, a category covering a range of online crimes such as scams and hacking. The figure represented a 6.9 per cent drop from 33,903 cases in 2024.

Among last year’s cases were 52 instances of hacking and 43 reports of ransomware, with reports of both crimes decreasing from 2024.

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But police figures showed that financial losses from hacking had more than doubled from HK$25.5 million in 2024 to HK$62.6 million last year.

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