According to the latest data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaints Center (IC3), cybercriminal scammers managed to defraud Americans more than $10.2 billion in 2022. IC3, which publishes reports on cyber attacks, announced that they registered 800,994 complaints last year.
While this is a five percent decrease from 2021, from a financial impact perspective, it increased significantly from $6.9 billion to over $10.2 billion.
Online shopping scammers’ favorite method
In the last five years, IC3 He adds that they receive an average of more than 651,800 complaints each year. In addition, more than 7.3 million reports have been filed since data collection began in 2000. Criminals defrauding victims 10.2 billion in 2022they have committed the highest scam in the history of the program.
Phishing was the most frequently reported cybercrime in 2022, accounting for more than a third of all complaints. In fact, phishing reports have been the highest every year since 2019. But the most costly last year was investment fraud, which rose from $1.45 billion in 2021 to $3.31 billion in 2022.
In this category, cryptocurrency investment scams increased from $907 million to $2.57 billion in the same time period. Despite making frequent headlines throughout 2022, ransomware attacks caused only 2,385 complaints and $34.3 million in losses. The biggest target of such attacks was the healthcare sector, followed by critical manufacturing facilities.
People over the age of 60 are most affected by online scams, losing $3.1 billion last year. Those under the age of 20 are the group that lost the least money, with $210,5 million, and also the least amount of complaints. (15,782)
It should be noted that the FBI’s figures represent only the complaints reported to IC3. The actual number of scams and the amount of money stolen from victims is undoubtedly much higher than these figures suggest.