A new report from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) claims that online fraud will cost Americans more than $12.5 billion in 2023.
Compared year-on-year to 2022, this represents an increase of almost 10% in terms of complaints received and an overall increase of 22% in losses.
Investment fraud topped the lists of costliest scams at $4.57 billion, followed shortly by business email breaches at $2.9 billion. Ransomware is up 74% compared to 2022, an increase of 74%.
Complaints and losses on the rise
It's not all bad news, as IC3's Asset Recovery Team (RAT) placed a monetary hold on $538.39 million in potentially fraudulent transactions, with a success rate of 71%.
Cryptocurrency-related investment fraud saw a jump from $2.57 billion to $3.94 billion, an increase of 53%. In terms of the age groups most likely to fall for these scams, the data does not show a clear correlation, with those aged 30 to >60 years being most affected. The 20- to 29-year-old age groups received about half as much attention as the other groups.
The healthcare and public health sector experienced the highest number of ransomware attacks, followed by critical manufacturing and then government facilities. Interestingly, IC3 received the fewest ransomware complaints from the Defense Industrial Base.
The most common ransomware affecting critical infrastructure was surpassed by Lockbit with 175, followed by ALPHV/BlackCat with 100, with Akira (95), Royal (63) and Black Basta (41) behind. While this does not represent all the ransomware attacks that have occurred, it shows how significant the authorities' attack on the LOCKBIT and ALPHV/BlackCat infrastructure has been.
Identity phishing and technology and customer service scams accounted for $1.3 billion in 2023; government impersonations increased 63% and technology and customer service scams increased 15%. With the increasing capabilities of deepfakes and generative AI providing useful tools to hacking groups, it is no surprise that these forms of fraud are increasing at such a rapid pace.
On average, the IC3 received 2,412 complaints per day related to online fraud, with more than 758,000 complaints received per year on average. Since IC3 was created in 2000, the organization has received more than 8 million complaints.
