FBI: Nearly $7 Billion Lost to Cybercrime in 2021 (2024)

The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center was created 22 years ago, in May 2000. Since its start it has fielded more than 6.5 million complaints.

Other report highlights:

• Business email compromise schemes, for the fourth consecutive year, had the largest dollar losses — more than $2.4 billion — among the various cybercrime categories. These scams target businesses, not individuals. For example, an entity might be asked to conduct a wire transfer of funds under a false pretense, with the loot flowing to a crook.
• Confidence scams— a category that takes in romance scams — accounted for the third-highest losses to victims. Overall reports of confidence scams numbered 24,299, with $956 million in victim losses.
• Cryptocurrencywas a feature in 34,202 complaints. Worryingly, digital currency losses grew nearly sevenfold to $1.6 billion, from $246 million in 2020. The spike came even though complaints slipped to 34,202 in 2021 from 35,229 a year earlier.
  

Abbate, the FBI’s No. 2 official, warns in the report’s introduction that the evolving cyber threat is becoming “increasingly intertwined with traditional foreign intelligence threats and emerging technologies.”

He and other officials stressed the importance of hearing from the public and business sector about computer-enabled crime, since such reports enable agents and analysts to “fill in the missing pieces with this valuable information during the investigatory process.”

“Not only does this reporting help to prevent additional crimes, it allows us to develop key insights on the ever-evolving trends and threats we face from malign cyber actors,” Abbate says in the report.

In the report, the FBI calls itself an intelligence-driven and threat-focused national security organization with intelligence and law enforcement responsibilities: “We are focused on protecting the American people from terrorism, espionage, cyberattacks and major criminal threats.”

One bright spot in a distressing report: The FBI’s Recovery Asset Team last year assisted in freezing over $328 million in funds for victims who were directed by criminals to make transfers to U.S. accounts under fraudulent pretenses.

Put simply, crime doesn’t always pay.

Clickherefor a state-by-state breakdown of cybercrime reports in 2021.