The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has published its annual report for 2023, which reveals that the number of cybercrime complaints received by the agency increased by nearly 10% compared to the previous year.
Cybercrime victims in the United States filed more than 880,000 complaints with the FBI in 2023, with reported losses totaling over $12.5 billion, which represents a 22% increase from 2022.
Over the past five years, the law enforcement agency received nearly 3.8 million complaints over losses totaling $37.4 billion.
Phishing continues to account for the highest percentage of complaints, followed at a distance by personal data breaches, non-payment or non-delivery scams, extortion, and tech support scams.
In terms of losses, investment fraud was the costliest, accounting for $4.57 billion in 2023, up from $3.31 billion in 2022. The second is business email compromise (BEC), with victims claiming to have lost a total of $2.9 billion.
Tech support scams, personal data breaches, confidence and romance scams, data breaches, government impersonation, and non-payment/non-delivery schemes each resulted in losses of several hundreds of millions of dollars.
When it comes to ransomware, the FBI received more than 2,800 complaints, with losses totaling nearly $60 million. The most targeted sectors were healthcare, critical manufacturing, government facilities, IT, and financial services.
“The IC3 received 1,193 complaints from organizations belonging to a critical infrastructure sector that were affected by a ransomware attack. Of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, IC3 reporting indicated 14 sectors had at least 1 member that fell to a ransomware attack in 2023,” the FBI said.
The most active ransomware groups were LockBit and BlackCat, both of which were recently targeted in international law enforcement operations.
The IC3 claims to have a success rate of more than 70% when it comes to recovering losses involving fraudulent money transfers made to domestic accounts. The agency said it managed to freeze nearly $538 million of the $758 million reported losses.
Related: FBI Highlights Emerging Initial Access Methods Used by Ransomware Groups
Related: The US is Bracing for Complex, Fast-Moving Threats to Elections This Year, FBI Director Warns
Related: FBI Dismantles Ubiquiti Router Botnet Controlled by Russian Cyberspies
