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

Senior police officer says hacking and ransomware cases can ‘cause serious impact on organisations affected’

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.

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.

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.