Cybercrime Costs Americans $21 Billion: FBI Report

Americans are bleeding cash to cybercriminals, with the FBI reporting a staggering $21 billion lost last year. This isn’t just a minor uptick; it’s a 26% jump from 2024’s $16.6 billion, marking another record year for cyber-enabled crime. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) saw over a million complaints, a significant increase from the previous year.

Investment scams, business email compromise (BEC), tech support fraud, and data breaches are the primary culprits. While phishing and extortion remain frequent complaints, investment scams alone accounted for nearly half of all scam-related incidents and a massive $8.6 billion in losses. However, the real money-spinner for crooks appears to be cryptocurrency fraud, which raked in over $11 billion from 181,565 victims. Cyber-enabled fraud overall accounted for $17.7 billion of the total reported losses.

Notably, the FBI’s report highlights that older Americans, particularly those over 60, are bearing the brunt, losing $7.7 billion – a 37% increase year-over-year. For the first time, the report also flags AI-related scams, which garnered 22,300 complaints and nearly $900 million in losses, signaling a new frontier for cyber-enabled fraud.