The Costliest Types of Cybercrime

In 2023, losses connected to worldwide cybercrimes reported to the FBI stood at $12.5 billion, crossing the $10-billion mark for the second year in a row. The report released in April 2024 stresses that this number is likely extremely conservative since it only factors in cases reported via the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and most reports originate in the United States. Among the more than 880,000 complaints registered, most monetary value was lost due to two attack vectors.

The Statista chart based on FBI data shows that investment fraud made up roughly 37 percent of all money lost in reported complaints. This type of fraud includes Ponzi and pyramid schemes or fraudulent retirement plans promising "large returns with minimal risk", according to the report's definition. Around $3 billion were lost due to business mail accounts being compromised via phishing or social engineering, enabling malicious actors to break into company accounts and initiate money transfers.

Other fraud vectors associated with significant losses are tech support impersonation ($925 million), breaches of personal data ($744 million) and romance frauds ($653 million). Next to investment fraud, the vector of government impersonation saw the largest percentage increase compared to the previous year, with 64 percent more money stolen than in 2022. This may be linked to the rise of readily accessible AI tools like ChatGPT enabling criminals to emulate politicians or celebrities. One such case made headlines when a political consultant paid $150 to create an AI version of U.S. President Joe Biden trying to talk voters out of casting their votes in the primaries because it would prohibit them from voting in the November election according to AP reporting from February 2024.