The FBI’s Latest Report on Cybercrime: What You Need To Know

2021 was another banner year for cybercriminals.  See what types of fraud hit hardest with these facts from the FBI’s 2021 Internet Crime report.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has had their hands full. As the nation’s direct outlet for reporting cybercrimes, the team has received more than 6.5 million complaints since its inception in 2000. As you might imagine, the numbers in their latest report are staggering. In the last five years the U.S. has seen a steady increase in the number of incidents, average loss per incident, and total annual loss reported.

In 2021, damages from cyberattacks totaled $6.9 billion – an increase of 64.3% from the prior year. Businesses across the country and in every major sector fell victim. If you’re considering exploring ways to better protect your company from these types of threats, here are a few 2021 cybercrime statistics from the FBI’s most recent report that might persuade you to do so:

• For the third year straight, Phishing is the most commonly used tactic by cybercriminals.
• In 2021, with more than 323,000 victims, phishing attacks represented 38.2% of all reported cybercrimes.
• Business Email Compromise (BEC) losses totaled nearly $2.4 billion. BEC is also known as Email Account Compromise (EAC) involves the unauthorized transfer of funds.
• 2021 thefts involving cryptocurrency increased seven times over prior year totals and accounted for more than $1.6 billion in total losses.
• Ransomware saw adjusted losses of more than $49.2 million while malware and virus incidents accounted for $5.6 million.
• While corporate data breaches were down in 2021, they still accounted for $151.6 million in losses. Per breach losses were more than $117,700.
• Fraudulent tech support scams accounted for almost $348 million in losses.
• 14 of the U.S.’s 16 critical infrastructure sectors fell victim to a ransomware attack in 2021, with the top three sectors being Healthcare and Public Health, Financial Services, and Information Technology.
• Government impersonations were particularly successful, averaging losses of $12,584 per incident.
• Of those tracked, 36,034 cybercrimes were committed with the help of social media.

There is some good news, thanks to the IC3’s Recovery Asset Team (RAT). Their successful investigative and recovery efforts in 2021 led to the recovery of $328.32 million in stolen funds. Of course, while hundreds of thousands of dollars are recovered by law enforcement each year, the majority of the money is lost. And while the FBI and IC3 teams are to be applauded, the key message here is that prevention is much wiser than recovery.