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FBI Internet Crime Complaints Center (IC3) at published his Annual Report (PDF) for 2020, and it revealed that victims of cybercrime in the United States reported a total loss of $ 4.2 billion for the year. This is $ 700 million more than the losses reported for 2019. As you can imagine from the increase in losses, there has also been an increase in the number of complaints received by IC3. In 2020, the organization handled 791,790 complaints – mostly types of phishing, vishing (video phishing), smishing (text phishing) and pharming – far more than the 467,361 complaints it received in 2019.
According to the report, the IC3 received 28,500 complaints related to COVID-19 last year. Bad actors have attacked a number of hospitals and medical facilities, and they have also targeted UI and other avenues revolving around the CARES Act stimulus funds. One of the most common ploys used by criminals to trick people was to impersonate government officials and contact victims by email, phone, and social media to collect personal information from them. topic or ask them for money.
There has also been an increase in business email compromise scams, in which criminals hack or spoof emails from company executives and then request electronic payments to be sent to fraudulent locations. BEC victims reported losses of more than $ 1.8 billion, which is a huge share of the total of $ 4.2 billion.
First takeaways:#BEC accounted for 37% of ALL losses last year. It’s just insane. Since “spoofing” is probably a subset of BEC, the total number of losses is close to $ 2.1 billion!
– Crane Hassold ? (@CraneHassold) March 17, 2021
Tech support fraud continues to be a growing problem, with losses totaling over $ 146 million. The IC3 indicates that this is 171% more than the category losses for 2019 and that most of the victims are over 60 years old. Ransomware reports also contributed $ 29.1 million to the total amount of losses, more than three times the $ 8.9 million in losses reported in the category for 2019. The actual amount of victims of attacks of ransomware last year is likely much higher, however, given that cybercriminals have taken over a number of hospitals and medical providers networks held hostage in the in the middle of the pandemic.
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