According to the latest FBI 2017 Internet Crime report, losses of cybercrime victims exceeded $1.4 billion in 2017.
The report data represents a total of 301,581 complaints filed with the Internet Complaint Center (IC3).
This past year, the top three cybercrimes reported by victims were Non-Payment/Non-Delivery (84,079 victims), Personal Data Breach (30,904 victims), and Phishing (25,344 victims). The top three crime types with the highest reported loss were BEC ($676,151,185), Confidence/Romance fraud ($211,382,989), and Non-Payment/Non-Delivery ($141,110,441).
The report found that the majority of victims and highest reported loss were over 60 years of age, with 49,523 victims and $342,531,972 in reported losses.
The states with the highest number of victims were California (41,974 victims), Florida (21,887 victims), Texas (21,852 victims), New York (17,622 victims), and Pennsylvania (11,348 victims).
The states with the highest losses were California with more than $214 million in total losses, Texas with more than $115 million in total losses, Florida with more than $110 in total losses, and New York with more than $89 million in total losses.
What's most surprising about this report is that the total number of ransomware complaints filed with the IC3 in 2017 (1783 complaints) decreased significantly compared to 2016 (2,673 complaints), leading many to believe victims losing faith in the FBI's ability to help recover stolen data or prosecute offenders.
Make no mistake, ransomware in both the quality and quantity is steadily growing, so it's imperative individuals and organizations alike take the steps necessary to prevent a ransomware attack. First and foremost, ensure that your systems are up to date. In the corporate IT environment, if your computer is not up to date with the latest security threat mitigations in place, then you are posing a risk to the entire network. This was the significant factor that made WannaCry such a devastatingly damaging cyber attack in that the Ransomware was designed to ‘worm’ around the network, infecting any other vulnerable systems.
To help protect your organization from this growing threat, NNT has developed the NNT Ransomware Mitigation Kit. Request to download your free mitigation kit today and receive a comprehensive set of system hardening templates that will ensure all your systems retain the most appropriate checks designed to hardened your IT environment and protect you from ransomware.
Request The FREE NNT Ransomware Mitigation Kit
New Net Technologies (NNT) is now part of Netwrix