FBI Announces Cybercrime Caused Losses of Over $12.5 Billion in 2023
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its annual report for 2023, disclosing that the agency observed a nearly 10% surge in cybercrime complaints compared to the previous year.
In 2023, cybercrime victims in the United States lodged over 880,000 complaints with the FBI, reporting losses exceeding $12.5 billion. This signifies a 22% escalation from 2022. Over the past five years, the FBI received nearly 3.8 million complaints, resulting in losses totaling $37.4 billion.
Phishing remains the most frequently reported type of cybercrime, followed at a considerable distance by personal data breaches, non-payment or non-delivery scams, extortion, and tech support scams.
Concerning financial losses, investment fraud emerged as the most costly, reaching $4.57 billion in 2023, up from $3.31 billion in 2022. Business email compromise (BEC) ranked second, with reported losses totaling $2.9 billion.
Tech support scams, personal data breaches, confidence and romance scams, data breaches, government impersonation, and non-payment/non-delivery schemes all resulted in losses amounting to several hundreds of millions of dollars.
FBI Reports Nearly 3,000 Cases of Ransomware in 2023
In the realm of ransomware, the FBI received over 2,800 complaints, with losses nearing $60 million. Sectors facing the highest targeting included healthcare, critical manufacturing, government facilities, IT, and financial services.
The IC3 noted that 1,193 complaints originated from organizations in critical infrastructure sectors affected by ransomware attacks. Among the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, IC3 reporting indicated that 14 had at least one member falling victim to a ransomware attack in 2023.
The most active ransomware groups were LockBit and BlackCat, both recently subject to international law enforcement operations.
The IC3 claims a success rate exceeding 70% in recovering losses from fraudulent money transfers made to domestic accounts. The agency reported freezing nearly $538 million of the $758 million in reported losses.
