FBI Releases New Report on Cyber-Crimes of 2017

A new report by FBI lists Internet-related crimes which have been most costly and highly complained about and which's based on 301,580 complaints that consumers filed about suspected offensive online operations with IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center) of the agency, last year. For 2017, the aggregate reported financial loss because of cyber-crimes is estimated to be $1.41 billion - a little less than the $1.45 billion mark of 2016.

Overall, however, the number happens to be astonishingly low as the biggest threat during 2017 was ransom software of which plentiful strains remained vibrant the entire year, notably 3 worldwide ransomware attacks which made victims within USA.

FBI investigated a massive number of the Internet-related crimes of 2017 and found them involving hijacked e-mail accounts, campaigns for scamming the elderly and data hacks. The total loss from hijacked e-mails was $676m, whilst losses based on above 60-year-old victims of fraud amounted $342m.

A largest cyber-security tale of 2017 - sophisticated ransomware assaults against governments and companies - was hardly included in FBI's listing, quite possibly because of 2 reasons: IC3 mainly gets individual consumers' complaints, while there's no measurement of cyber-attacks' general economic impact in the report. Among the total complaints that Federal Bureau of Investigation tallied, merely 1,783 were about ransomware that was behind $2.3m direct costs accountable to criminals. In ransom software assaults, victims are blocked from accessing their data till the time they pay to the hackers usually in the Bitcoin virtual currency. Statescoop.com posted this, May 8, 2018.

Of some more complaints IC3 received, a total 14,938 were those related to extortions, with the total amount of adjusted losses as $15m-and-more. There were also increasing tech support frauds from which crooks netted $14.8m during 2017. Within such assaults, fraudsters promise for giving consumers, technical support or security for getting the victims' money alternatively admission into their devices.

FBI states that it doesn't support making ransom payments within such instances as doing thus doesn't guarantee a company would recover its locked data, whereas making the payments only emboldens the criminals towards making more targets turn into victims thus making for one profitable venture which attracts other crooks.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/16/2018