According to its latest report, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) of the FBI received more than 800,000 complaints related to cybercrime in 2022, resulting in losses exceeding $10 billion. Despite a smaller number of complaints compared to 2021, the losses increased from $6.9 billion to $10.3 billion. Over the past five years, the agency received a total of 3.26 million complaints, resulting in $27.6 billion in losses.
In 2022, phishing was the most reported cyber-related crime, with 300,000 complaints, followed by personal data breaches (58,000), non-payment/non-delivery scams (51,000), extortion (39,000), and tech support scams (32,000). Business email compromise (BEC) attacks accounted for over 21,000 complaints, resulting in $2.7 billion in losses. However, the Recovery Asset Team (RAT) of the IC3 has achieved a 73% success rate in recovering funds, freezing $433 million out of $590 million reported losses.
Investment scams caused the highest losses, with $3.31 billion reported, an increase of 127% compared to the previous year. Cryptocurrency investment fraud contributed significantly to this figure, rising from $907 million in 2021 to $2.57 billion in 2022. Ransomware attacks resulted in over 2,300 complaints and adjusted losses of over $34 million, with the healthcare, critical manufacturing, government facilities, and IT sectors being the most targeted.
LockBit, BlackCat, and Hive were the most common ransomware operations targeting critical infrastructure, with Hive recently disrupted by law enforcement. Call center fraud, including tech support and government impersonation scams, victimized 44,000 people, resulting in losses exceeding $1 million, according to FBI data.
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Author: Eduard Kovacs
