The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has released its 2024 Internet Crime Report, marking a record-breaking year in cybercrime. The report highlights a staggering $16.6 billion in reported losses, a 33% increase from 2023, underscoring the escalating threat landscape faced by individuals and organizations alike.
Key findings in the report include:
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Record-breaking financial losses:
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Total reported losses reached $16.6 billion, a significant jump from the previous year.
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The IC3 received 859,532 complaints, with an average loss of $19,372 per complaint.
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Top cybercrime categories:
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Phishing/spoofing: 193,407 complaints
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Extortion: 86,415 complaints
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Personal data breaches: 64,882 complaints
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Cryptocurrency-related scams:
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Nearly 150,000 complaints involved cryptocurrency, accounting for $9.3 billion in losses.
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Investment frauds, particularly those involving digital assets, were the most damaging, with losses exceeding $6.5 billion.
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Elderly individuals targeted:
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Individuals aged 60 and older filed 147,127 complaints, suffering nearly $4.8 billion in losses.
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This demographic was frequently targeted by tech support scams, romance scams, and crypto investment frauds.
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Critical infrastructure under siege:
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The healthcare and public health sector was the most targeted by ransomware attackers in 2023.
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Other critical sectors, including manufacturing and government facilities, also faced significant threats.
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This year marks the 25th anniversary of the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, which allows the public to report cyber-enabled crime and is a key source for information on scams and cyber threats.
FBI Director Kash Patel emphasized the importance of public vigilance, saying: “Reporting is one of the first and most important steps in fighting crime so law enforcement can use this information to combat a variety of frauds and scams.”
In his introductory comments in the report, B. Chad Yarbrough, Operations Director for Criminal and Cyber at the FBI, said: “This year marks the 25th anniversary of the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3. Originally intended to serve the law enforcement community, IC3 has evolved to become the primary destination for the public to report cyber-enabled crime and fraud as well as a key source for information on scams and cyber threats. Since its founding, IC3 has received over 9 million complaints of malicious activity. During its infancy, IC3 received roughly 2,000 complaints every month. For the past five years, IC3 has averaged more than 2,000 complaints every day.”
Like Patel, Yarbrough also emphasized the importance of public reporting: “And in the fight against increasingly savvy criminals, the FBI also relies on you. Without the information you report to us through IC3 or your local FBI Field Office, we simply cannot piece together the puzzle of this ever-shifting threat landscape. If ever you suspect you’re a victim of cyber-enabled crime, do not hesitate to let us know. We want to be there for you, and what you report will help us help others.”
Here are a few more trends from the report.
Call center fraud
Illegal call centers defraud thousands of victims each year. Two categories of call center fraud reported to the IC3 are Tech/Customer Support and Government Impersonation.
Since 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI, and IC3 have collaborated with law enforcement in India, such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in New Delhi and local Indian states, to combat cyber-enabled financial crimes and transnational call center fraud. In 2024, law enforcement in India conducted multiple call center raids, disruptions, seizures, and arrests of the individuals alleged to be involved in perpetrating these crimes.
The FBI Washington Field Office participated in two media series aimed at bringing awareness to call center fraud.
Ransomware
The IC3 recognized 67 new ransomware variants in 2024. The most reported of these new variants were:
• FOG
• Lynx
• Cicada 3301
• Dragonforce
• Frag
The IC3 provides this information to FBI Field Offices to help identify new ransomware variants, discover the enterprises the threat actors are targeting, and determine whether critical infrastructure is being targeted.
Financial fraud kill chain
The IC3 Recovery Asset Team streamlines communications with financial institutions and FBI field offices to assist in the freezing of funds for victims of fraudulent domestic and international transactions.
FBI Denver, March 2024: The Recovery Asset Team received a complaint reporting a BEC involving a real estate transaction. The individuals were in the process of purchasing property and received a spoofed email from their supposed real estate agents requesting that they wire $956,342 to a U.S. domestic bank to finalize the closing. Two days after the wire was initiated, the victims realized the instructions came from a spoofed email. Upon notification, the Recovery Asset Team immediately initiated the process to freeze the fraudulent recipient bank account. The transfer of $955,060 was stopped and the money was returned to the individuals.