The FBI has released its annual Internet Crime Report, revealing a staggering increase in financial losses due to cybercrime. Americans lost over $12.5 billion in 2023, a 22% jump from 2022 figures.
Investment fraud emerged as the most financially devastating cybercrime, with losses skyrocketing to $4.57 billion – a concerning 38% increase from the previous year. Notably, a significant portion of this rise involved cryptocurrency scams.
These scams, specifically referencing cryptocurrency, saw a staggering 53% jump, with losses growing from $2.57 billion in 2022 to $3.94 billion in 2023. As always, these scams aim to lure victims with the promise of high returns on their investments.
In 2023, the IC3 received 21,489 Business Email Compromise (BEC) complaints with adjusted losses of over 2.9 billion. BEC is a sophisticated scam targeting both businesses and individuals performing transfers of funds. The scam is frequently carried out when a subject compromises legitimate business email accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion techniques to conduct unauthorized transfers of funds
Additionally, 2023 witnessed an 18% rise in ransomware incidents, accompanied by criminals employing even more destructive tactics to extort victims. The FBI stresses that these figures likely underestimate the true cost of cybercrime due to significant underreporting.
The IC3 received 1,193 complaints from organizations belonging to a critical infrastructure sector that were affected by a ransomware attack. Of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, IC3 reporting indicated 14 sectors had at least 1 member that fell to a ransomware attack in 2023.
The majority of ransomware attack reports concerned attacks from LockBit (175), ALPHV/BlackCat (100), Akira (95), Royal (63), and Black Basta (41).
Finally, in 2023, tech/customer support and government impersonation scams, targeting mostly the elderly, led to more than $1.3 billion in losses.
