More than $10 billion in losses from online scams were reported to the FBI in 2022, the highest annual loss in the last five years, according to a new report from the bureau. The more than $3 billion jump in reports of online fraud from 2021 to 2022 was driven by a near-tripling in reports of cryptocurrency investment fraud, the FBI said in its annual Internet Crime Report. The report tallies a wide variety of fraud complaints – from marketing scams to ransomware – and is a metric for US policymakers in measuring how much hacking and other schemes are costing the American economy. While people in their 30s filed the most fraud complaints last year, the burden of many digital scams fell on the elderly. People over 60 accounted for $724 million, or more than two-thirds of the reported losses from “call center fraud,” according to the FBI. Such fraud occurs when scammers call someone impersonating tech support or government agencies. Ransomware, which locks computers until hackers are paid off, accounted for about $34 million in adjusted losses reported to the FBI last year. The relatively modest figure compared to other forms of fraud could be due to the fact that many victim organizations still do not report ransomware attacks to the FBI.
Full report : FBI says $10 billion lost to online fraud in 2022 as crypto investment scams surged.
While these are the cryptocurrency scams and frauds that have happened in 2022, OODA has been compiling a comprehensive Web3 incident database based on our research to categorize what compromises are taking place as well as document the root causes that plague Cryptos, DeFi, NFTs, and Web3 in general. Tracking root causes provides comprehensive insights into how innovators can create robust cyber risk management approaches and reduce the potential for consequential attacks. You can access the OODA comprehensive Crypto Incident tracker here.
