WASHINGTON–Losses due to Internet crime totaled $1.3 billion during 2016, according to new data released by the FBI’s Internet Complaint Center—but that figure is said to be hugely under-reported.
The Complaint Center tallied 298,728 complaints by Americans related to the Internet during the year.
But the Bureau also notes that the Department of Justice estimates that only 15% of all Internet-related crime gets reported to authorities by consumers.
"This past year, the top three crime types reported by victims were non-payment and non-delivery, personal data breach and payment scams," said Scott S. Smith, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, in remarks included in the FBI’s Internet Crime Report 2016. "The top three crime types by reported loss were BEC [business email compromise], romance and confidence fraud, and non-payment and non-delivery scams."
According to the Internet Crime Report, the FBI is seeing growth in four types of scams: business email compromise, ransomware, tech-support fraud, and extortion.
The FBI said it has launched Operation Wellspring, which it describes as "an initiative through which state and local law enforcement officers are embedded in, and trained by, FBI cyber task forces and serve as the primary case agents on Internet-facilitated criminal investigations."
It should be noted that the FBI also stated that Internet-enabled crime does not occur exclusively online.
The FBI said one increasingly seen attack involves criminals contacting victims and offering a refund for overpayment, then requesting access to the victim's PC to help them log into their online bank account and process the transaction. So-called "support provider" scams then empty out the victim’s account.
The FBI added the five states reporting the highest 2016 victim losses related to internet crime were California ($255.2 million), New York ($106.2 million), Florida ($88.8 million), Texas ($77.1 million) and Virginia ($49.2 million).