According to the FBI’s annual Internet Crime Report, people lost more than $6.9 billion to internet crimes in 2021, up more than $2 billion from 2020. The report, which was released on Tuesday, provides “details regarding the most common internet scams” as reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
According to the FBI, 847,376 internet crime reports were reported in 2021, a 7% increase from 2020 but a stunning 81 percent increase over 2019. Phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery, and personal data breaches were the top three cybercrimes recorded last year.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic, which, as the FBI stated in its report, resulted in a surge in working from home and virtual meetings, is to blame for much of the increase in online crimes over the last two years. Although there appears to be no count of internet crimes related to COVID-19 listed in the 2021 report, the FBI received more than 28,500 complaints of illicit internet behavior directly related to COVID-19 in 2020.
While COVID-19 limits and mandates are being relaxed across most of the country, criminal activities on the internet, including phishing and data breaches, which reached an all-time high in 2021, may continue to rise. Scams and support fraud, which accounted for 32,400 complaints in 2021, may become more common in the bitcoin realm. Romantic scams, tech support fraud, and ransomware are all prevalent internet crimes to be aware of.
A request for additional information from the FBI was not immediately returned. Check out the entire FBI Internet Crime Report for more information on reported crimes and how to be watchful against increased criminal activity on the internet.
Many of the scams begin with emails or robocalls and progress to a point where you speak with someone, according to Couch. The person on the other end of the line will try to persuade you to buy the gift cards using social engineering, then read the numbers over the phone.
Some con artists will try to persuade victims that they work for the Internal Revenue Service and are owed money, then demand payment in the form of gift cards. Others make no apologies for being criminals, claiming to have hacked into a victim’s bank account and threatening to empty it unless they’re compensated with gift cards.
