Internet Crimes Caused $1.42 Billion Losses in 2017
The FBI's ’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) logged more than 300,000 complaints in 2017 with losses of more than $1.4 billion.
Over the past five years, the agency has received more than 1.42 million complaints reporting losses totaling $5.52 billion. Since 2000 when the IC3 was established, it has received more than 4 million complaints.
The most costly types of internet crime are categorized as business email compromise and email account compromise (BEC/EAC), which accounted for more than $676 million in losses and 15,690 complaints last year. BEC/EAC scams target businesses working with foreign suppliers or those that regularly move money by means of wire transfers.
The second-most costly type of fraud is confidence or romantic fraud, which resulted in more than 15,372 complaints and cost Americans more than $211 million last year.
The most common type of internet crime is non-payment/non-delivery related to auction websites. More than 84,000 Americans were victimized and they lost a total of $141 million, the third-highest amount of any internet crime type.
The top five states based on victim counts were:
- California: 41,974
- Florida: 21,887
- Texas: 21,852
- New York: 17,622
- Pennsylvania: 11.348
Based on loss values, the top five states were:
- California: $214.2 million
- Texas: $115.7 million
- Florida: $110.6 million
- New York: $88.6 million
- Arizona: $59.4 million
Americans over the age of 60 were the most frequent victims (nearly 50,000) and suffered the greatest total losses ($342.5 billion). Loss totals increased by age group, but the second highest total number of victims came in the 30-to-39 age group (45,458).
Ransomware attacks declined in 2017, according to the FBI data, from 2,673 complaints in 2016 to 1,783 last year. Victims of ransomware lost more than $2.3 million last year, versus $2.4 million in 2016.
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