Cybercrime caused over sixteen billion dollars in damages last year, according to the FBI based on its own figures.
The greatest damage was suffered by victims of investment fraud, business e-mail compromise and help desk fraud, with damage amounts well above $1 billion. The direct reported damage from ransomware was $12.4 million.
The U.S. Bureau of Investigation received nearly 860,000 cybercrime complaints. More than 256,000 complaints were from victims who had suffered financial damage. The total amount of damages recorded was $16.6 billion.
Investment fraud topped the list with $6.5 billion in damages. In this, victims are enticed to invest more and more money in a particular platform, after which criminals suddenly disappear into the sunset. S
ome 48,000 people reported this form of cybercrime. Business e-mail compromise (BEC) ranked second, with a damage amount of $2.7 billion.
BEC is a catch-all term that includes all kinds of e-mail-related frauds. These include ceo fraud, but also frauds in which scammers pose as suppliers and ask customers to transfer payments to other accounts. The FBI received more than 21,000 reports about this.
The FBI also has a category called “crypto-related fraud. However, these are cases such as investment or help desk fraud where the scammers used crypto currency as a medium. For example, fraudulent crypto investments were responsible for $5.8 billion in damages. The total damage from “crypto fraud” was $9.3 billion.
Nearly 150,000 people complained about this. Ransomware accounted for $12.4 million in damages and more than 3,100 complaints.
The FBI notes that this does not include things like lost revenue, lost files, extra salary, hiring outside parties and other recovery costs.
Most of the reports the FBI received, 193,000, came in about phishing.