Topline
The number of cybercrime complaints to the Federal Bureau of Investigation rose 7% in 2021 to 847,376 and total money lost to cybercrime increased 64% to $6.9 billion, the FBI said Tuesday in its annual Internet Crime Report, which highlighted how remote communication and virtual meetings can leave businesses and individuals vulnerable to social engineering attacks by fraudsters.
Money lost to online scams hit a new high in 2021, the FBI reported.
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Key Facts
Cybercriminals stole $2.4 billion by compromising business email accounts, which are often used to initiate fraudulent wire transfers; $1.46 billion through investment scams, which often involved bogus cryptocurrency investment opportunities; and $956 million through confidence fraud and romance scams, in which a scammer may pose as a potential romantic partner before demanding money to remedy a supposed emergency.
The rise of remote work and virtual meetings led to an increase in online scams:one new technique involved scammers inviting company employees to a virtual meeting and then using “deepfake” simulated audio of an executive’s voice to instruct employees to transfer money to a fraudulent account, according to the report.
Scammers are increasingly turning to difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency transactions enabled by crypto-compatible ATMs, which the FBI describes as poorly regulated and offering instantaneous and irreversible…
