Internet users lose 6.9 billion USD because of online fraud-Information Technology

The report of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) online fraud and damage from ransomware are both likely to increase sharply in 2021.

According to Crime Report Internet According to the latest from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Internet fraud caused at least $6.9 billion in damage globally in 2021, far exceeding $4.2 billion in 2020.

Complaints filed with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) also hit a record 847,376, well above the 552,000 average per year since 2017.

As in previous years, phishing attacks were the most commonly reported crime, with 323,972 incidents. A more specific method called business email penetration (BEC) has caused nearly $2.4 billion in damage to 19,954 victims.

With the BEC method, criminals gain the right to use a legitimate email address to scam businesses/individuals and then steal money, cryptocurrencies or steal data and then resell on the black market.

According to the FBI, between July 2019 and December 2021, IC3 recorded a 65% increase in damage caused by BEC crimes, with victims from 177 countries. Part of the reason for this increase is the fact that many transactions and business activities have been moved to the network environment due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In addition, the damage from crypto-related crimes also increased nearly 7 times in 2021, to more than $ 1.6 billion compared to $ 246.2 million in 2020.

Regarding ransomware, IC3 received 3729 complaints related to this type of malware in the past year, although many cases are believed to go unreported. 649 complaints come from owners or operators of critical infrastructure.

The damage caused by ransomware (only counting cases where the victim has to pay ransom) in 2021 is more than 49.2 million USD, an increase of more than 1.5 times compared to 30 million USD in 2020.

Of the ransomware variants reported to IC3, the top three that target critical infrastructure include Conti (87), LockBit (58) and REvil/Sodinokibi (51).