March 7, 2024 at 07:56AM
The FBI’s 2023 Internet Crime Report reveals a 22% increase in reported losses, totaling $12.5 billion, with 880,000 complaints submitted. People over 60 were the most vulnerable, and trends since 2019 show rising complaints and losses. Notably, BEC, investment fraud, and ransomware caused significant financial losses, totaling billions. IC3’s Recovery Asset Team successfully traced and froze stolen funds, highlighting a 71% success rate since its establishment in 2018.
Based on the meeting notes, the 2023 Internet Crime Report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) revealed a significant increase in reported losses and relevant complaints compared to 2022. The report documented a record $12.5 billion in losses, reflecting a 22% increase, and 880,000 relevant complaints submitted to the FBI, marking a 10% rise from the previous year. Notably, people over 60 were the most targeted age group, indicating the vulnerability of older adults to cybercrime.
The types of crimes that increased in 2023 were tech support scams and extortion, while phishing, personal data breach, and non-payment/non-delivery scams saw a slight decline.
The report underscored four online crimes that caused the most financial losses in the United States last year, namely Business Email Compromise (BEC), investment fraud, ransomware, and tech/customer support and government impersonation scams. BEC scams alone resulted in over $2.9 billion in losses from 21,489 complaints. Investment fraud increased by 38% and accounted for confirmed losses of $4.57 billion, predominantly driven by a 53% rise in cryptocurrency scam losses. Additionally, the FBI recorded 2,825 complaints linked to ransomware in 2023, with estimated losses exceeding $59.6 million. Notably, the recovery efforts conducted by IC3’s Recovery Asset Team (RAT) have had a success rate of over 71%, with $538.4 million in stolen funds frozen since its establishment in February 2018.
It’s important to note that the figures presented only represent known cases of internet crime reported to or discovered by law enforcement, potentially underestimating the total losses caused by cybercrime each year.