Internet Crime Complaints Surge in 2020, Fueled By Pandemic

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Internet Crime Complaints Surge in 2020, Fueled By Pandemic

 

 

Suspected internet crime complaints increased by 69% in 2020 compared to 2019 in the US, according to figures released in the FBI’s 2020 Internet Crime Report.

 

Total complaints reached 791,790 last year, representing a rise of more than 300,000 compared to 2019. This resulted in total recorded losses of more than $4.1bn to victims, as cyber-criminals took advantage of the shift to online services as a result of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

 

The report from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) found that business email compromise was the costliest scam technique employed.

 

The three most prominent forms of internet crime reported were phishing, which surged from 114,702 complaints in 2019 to 241,342 in 2020. This resulted in adjusted losses for victims of over $54m. This was followed by non-payment/non-delivery scams, growing from 61,832 in 2019 to 108,869, resulting in losses of more than $265m. Extortion was the third most complained about internet crime last year, rising from 43,101 victims in 2019 to 76,741 in 2020. Total losses from extortion were recorded as close to $70m.

 

The IC3 also observed a sharp rise in ransomware incidents last year, with 2474 complaints resulting in adjusted losses of more than $29.1m. The most common means of infection were email phishing campaigns and remote desktop protocol (RDP) vulnerabilities.

 

Additionally, the study emphasized the extent to which fraudsters leveraged the COVID-19 crisis, with the IC3 receiving over 28,500 complaints related to pandemic. These included the targeting of a number of government financial relief schemes, such as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act).

 

Commenting on the findings, Ilia Kolochenko, CEO, founder and chief architect at ImmuniWeb, said: “The most popular incidents mentioned in the report involve human error, spanning from trivial consumer fraud and phishing to more sophisticated BEC hacking and ransomware campaigns. In 2020, attackers were aggressively exploiting pandemic-related topics,  a trend that will likely persist this year. Unsurprisingly, most of the self-reported victims are over 60 years old – they may lack cybersecurity training and are susceptible to manipulation.”

 

 

Source: Internet Crime Complaints Surge in 2020, Fueled By Pandemic

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FBI: Cybercrime Victims Reported Losses of $4.2 Billion in 2020

 

 

The FBI this week published its Internet Crime Report for 2020, and the agency said it received nearly 800,000 cybercrime complaints last year, with reported losses totaling $4.2 billion.

 

The number of complaints received by the FBI in 2020 increased significantly compared to the previous year, when it got roughly 467,000 complaints. The total reported losses for 2019 were approximately $3.5 billion. Since 2016, reported losses total $13.3 billion, the agency said.

 

The FBI said its Recovery Asset Team, which it established in 2018 to help victims recover their money from banks, had a success rate of 82% last year, managing to get banks to freeze $380 million.

 

In 2020, the law enforcement agency received 240,000 complaints related to phishing, vishing or smishing. Many complaints, more than 108,000, were related to non-payment or non-delivery schemes. Other types of crimes with many complaints include extortion (76,000), personal data breach (45,000), identity theft (43,000), and spoofing (28,000). The smallest number of complaints was related to hacktivists, with only 52 complaints.

 

In addition to the United States, many complaints came from victims in the UK, Canada, India, Greece, Australia, South Africa, France, Germany, Mexico and Belgium.

Unsurprisingly, the highest losses were reported as a result of business email compromise (BEC) and email account compromise (EAC) scams, totaling $1.8 billion, followed by confidence fraud and romance scams ($600 million), and investment scams ($336 million).

 

In the case of ransomware attacks, the FBI received 2,400 complaints, with reported losses of nearly $30 million, but the organization pointed out that this does not include estimates of lost business, wages, time, or remediation services purchased by the victim as a result of the attack.

 

There has been a significant increase in complaints related to phishing and non-payment/non-delivery schemes. In the case of non-payment scams, losses increased from $196 million to $265 million, but losses remained roughly the same in the case of phishing attacks. The losses reported as a result of tech support scams, however, nearly tripled from 2019 to 2020.

 

The complete 2020 Internet Crime Report is available in the website of the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

 

 

Source: FBI: Cybercrime Victims Reported Losses of $4.2 Billion in 2020