US businesses and citizens lost more than $4 billionmillions dollars from online attacks and scams on the Internetnetwork during the duration of 2020, according to a new FBI report.
Based on data collected through the FBI's Cybercrime Complaint Center (IC3), where citizens can report financial losses from cybercrime and cybercrime, the report states that 20% more money was lost than in the previous year. Victims also reported more than 2.000 incidents per day on average, up from 1.200 in 2019.
In all, BEC incidents have been reported more than 19.000 times and resulted in losses of approximately $ 1,8 billion. A comparison with 2019 figures ($ 23.775 reported with $ 1,7 billion in damages) shows that criminals had a smaller network but were more successful at deceiving victims for larger sums.
Unlike BEC attacks, ransomware attacks have become much more destructive. In 2020, the FBI received a total of 2.747 ransomware complaints, amounting to a loss of $ 29,1 million, up from just $ 8,9 million the previous year. And the total losses are likely to be much greater, because not all events are reported to the authorities.
However, it is not just companies that have suffered cyber damage. U.S. citizens also paid $ 146 million in tech support fraud, with losses rising 171 percent year on year.
Most of the victims (66%) were in their 60s or older, the FBI said, adding that scams were usually a joint effort between call centers abroad and US-based suspects.