Cybercrime resulted in record losses in 2024

Although the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received fewer complaints in 2024 than in 2023, financial losses were up 33% annually to $16.6 billion, according to its annual report published Wednesday. 

In total, IC3 received 859,531 complaints in 2024, down from 880,418 complaints in 2023. Of the nearly 860,000 complaints, roughly 256,000 resulted in actual losses. The average loss was $19,372, up from $14,197 a year ago. 

These rising financial losses are even more concerning as “the FBI took significant actions to make it harder, and more costly, for malicious actors to succeed” in 2024, according to the report. These efforts included disbanding fraud and laundering syndicates, shutting down scam call centers, dissolving “botnets” and putting hundreds of bad actors behind bars.

Americans 60 and older lodged the most complaints of any age group at 147,127 complaints, totaling $4.8 billion in losses, also the most of any age group.

The most common type of complaint were phishing or spoofing scams, with 193,407 related complaints. Ransomware accounted for 3,156 complaints and business email compromise (BEC) — which is the genesis for most wire fraud attempts — accounted for 21,442 complaints, essentially unchanged from a year prior. 

Despite ranking as only the seventh most common complaint, BEC took the No. 2 spot for most losses, with these incidents resulting in $2.77 billion in losses in 2024, down roughly $2 million from 2023. 

Indicative of this is that wire transfers or ACH transfers were the second most common way in which funds were lost. 

In the ongoing battle between those in fraud prevention, fraudsters are constantly looking for new ways to scam victims.

Last week, the FBI issued a public service announcement warning the public that criminal scammers have started to impersonate IC3 employees. According to the announcement, between December 2023 and February 2025, the FBI received more than 100 reports of IC3 impersonation scams. 

The IC3 noted that it will never directly communicate with individuals and if further information is needed, individuals will be contacted by FBI employees from local field offices or other law enforcement officers. The IC3 said it will never ask for payment to recover lost funds.