Online fraud cost Americans $12.5 billion last year – and the FBI says things will only get worse in 2024
A new report According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), online fraud will cost Americans more than $12.5 billion by 2023.
Compared to 2022, this represents an increase of almost 10% in terms of complaints received, and an overall increase in losses of 22%.
Investment fraud topped the charts for the most expensive scam at $4.57 billion, followed shortly after by business email compromises at $2.9 billion. Ransomware is up 74% from 2022, an increase of 74%.
Complaints and losses are increasing
It’s not all bad news, as the IC3 Recovery Asset Team (RAT) has stopped potentially fraudulent transactions worth $538.39 million, with a 71% success rate.
Investment fraud involving cryptocurrency saw a jump from $2.57 to $3.94 billion – an increase of 53%. As for the age groups most likely to fall for these scams, the data shows no clear correlation, with age groups 30 to >60 being the most targeted. Young people between the ages of 20 and 29 were targeted about half as often as the other groups.
The healthcare and public health sector saw the highest number of ransomware attacks, followed by critical manufacturing and then government facilities. Interestingly, the IC3 received the fewest number of ransomware complaints of the Defense Industrial Base.
The most common ransomware affecting critical infrastructure was topped by Lockbit at 175, followed by ALPHV/BlackCat at 100, with Akira (95), Royal (63) and Black Basta (41) trailing behind. While this does not represent every ransomware attack that has occurred, it does show how important the authorities have been in targeting the LOCKBIT and ALPHV/BlackCat infrastructure.
Impersonation and technology and customer support scams reached $1.3 billion in 2023, with government impersonation increasing by 63% and technology and customer support scams by 15%. With the increasing capabilities of deepfakes and generative AI providing useful tools to hacker groups, it is no surprise that these forms of fraud are increasing at such a rapid pace.
On average, the IC3 received 2,412 complaints per day regarding online fraud, with an average of over 758,000 complaints received per year. Since the IC3 was founded in 2000, the organization has received more than 8 million complaints.