FBI IC3 report (Internet Crime Report)

The IC3's 2024 report counts 859,532 complaints and $16.6 billion in reported losses, up from $12.5 billion in 2023, a 33% increase. Investment fraud accounts for $6.57 billion, business email compromise (BEC) for $2.77 billion. The Internet Crime Complaint Center, set up in 2000, is the FBI's intake point where individuals and businesses report online fraud and attacks; every spring it publishes a report broken down by crime type, by state and by age group. For a crime or cyber underwriter, it is one of the few long public series on the frequency of wire fraud in the United States. It is also the only one that puts a dollar figure on each category. It has two flaws to keep in mind. These are losses reported by victims, unverified and with no recoveries netted out, and not every victim reports, businesses even less so once an insurer has paid. The series also mixes individuals and businesses: investment fraud, which drives the total, hits mostly individuals, while BEC is almost entirely a business loss. The BEC figure, stable in order of magnitude year to year, is the one quoted in crime pricing and in underwriting the funds transfer fraud cover of cyber policies. The report gives a scale and a trend, and should never be used as a rating base. Not to be confused with Verizon's DBIR, which analyzes confirmed incidents and data breaches contributed by companies and service providers, with no comparable loss amounts. The IC3 counts complaints and dollars, the DBIR counts technical causes.