On March 10, 2023, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) Internet Crime Complaint Center (“IC3”) released its 2022 annual report.
By way of background, the IC3 was established in May 2000 and serves as the FBI’s mechanism for receiving and analyzing individual complaints on various cybercrime-related matters, such as online fraud, computer intrusions and hacking, economic espionage, online extortion, international money laundering, identity theft, and much more.
In this blog, we highlight some of the most impactful statistics in IC3’s latest report on internet crime.
IC3 Complaint and Losses Statistics
In 2022, the IC3 received 800,944 complaints in total. This was a 5% decrease from 2021, which had 847,376 complaints in total. It is notable to point out, however, that the number of complaints that the IC3 has received on an annual basis has more than doubled since 2018, which had only 351,937 complaints in total.
The amount in total losses has also increased significantly. In 2022, the potential total loss was $10.3 billion. In 2021, that amount was $6.9 billion. In 2018, that amount was much lower at $2.7 billion.
Over the last 5 years, the IC3 has received 3.26 million complaints and reported total losses amounting up to $27.6 billion.
Top 5 Internet Crime Types
In 2022, the IC3 received the highest number of complaints about phishing (300,497). Additionally, the IC3 received 58,859 complaints about personal data breaches, 51,679 complaints about non-payment/non-delivery, 39,416 complaints about extortion, and 32,538 complaints about tech support.
For the past 4 years, phishing has been the category to receive the highest number of complaints on an annual basis.
The IC3’s 2022 annual report also highlighted business email compromise, crypto investment scams, ransomware, and call center fraud as categories of high activity.
Top 10 States by Number of Victims and Dollar Amount Lost
Key Takeaways
As the threat landscape continues to evolve, businesses should take steps to prioritize cyber readiness. The FBI’s IC3 continues to receive high volumes of complaints related to a wide variety of Internet-based crimes. The total dollar amount of losses on an annual basis has also been increasing significantly over the past 5 years. Businesses can take the initiative today and develop a robust data security and privacy program to mitigate cyber risk.
Please reach out to our team of highly skilled attorneys who are experienced in developing comprehensive and scalable data security and privacy programs and helping businesses navigate cybersecurity incidents.
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