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The FBI’s 2024 Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Annual Report records $16.6 billion in reported losses from 859,532 complaints submitted for calendar year 2024. That was a 33% increase in reported losses from 2023—not a 33% increase in complaint volume. The roughly $6.57 billion figure refers to investment-fraud losses, the largest single crime-type loss category, not the total cost of reported cybercrime.
How much money did cybercrime cost in 2024?
IC3 received 859,532 complaints covering 2024, and 256,256 of them reported an actual financial loss. The average reported loss among complaints reporting a loss was $19,372. The headline $16.6 billion is the sum of losses reported to IC3; it is not an estimate of every cybercrime incident or the full societal cost of cybercrime. The FBI’s 2024 IC3 Annual Report, published in 2025, says reported losses rose 33% from 2023.
Those figures describe complaints submitted to IC3 and the information complainants provided. They should not be read as a complete census of cybercrime or as a measure of costs that victims did not report.
What scams caused the most reported losses?
Investment fraud led the report’s crime-type loss categories, but it was not close to the full $16.6 billion total. Business email compromise and tech-support scams were the next largest listed loss categories.
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| Crime type | Complaints | Reported losses |
|---|---|---|
| Investment fraud | 47,919 | $6,570,639,864 |
| Business email compromise | 21,442 | $2,770,151,146 |
| Tech support | 36,002 | $1,464,755,976 |
All figures in the table are for complaints and reported losses to IC3 for calendar year 2024, as listed in the FBI’s 2024 report. The categories are not interchangeable with broader measures such as cyber-enabled fraud.
Which cybercrime was reported most often?
Complaint volume and financial impact produce different rankings. Phishing/spoofing was the most frequently reported crime type, while investment fraud led the loss categories above.
| Crime type | Complaints reported for 2024 |
|---|---|
| Phishing/spoofing | 193,407 |
| Extortion | 86,415 |
| Personal data breach | 64,882 |
These are complaint counts, not a ranking by dollars lost. A high complaint count does not necessarily mean a category caused the greatest aggregate financial harm.
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The FBI groups a wider set of fraud complaints under “cyber-enabled fraud”: cases in which criminals use the internet or other technology to commit fraud, often involving theft of money, data, or identity, or counterfeit goods and services. For 2024, this grouping accounted for 333,981 complaints and $13.7 billion in reported losses—38% of complaints and 83% of reported losses.
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Cyber-enabled fraud is a broad grouping, not one additional crime type to add to the category figures. The report also tracks cyber threats such as ransomware and malware separately. Cryptocurrency is another descriptor, not a crime type: it was associated with 149,686 complaints and $9,322,335,911 in reported losses. That descriptor can overlap crime types, so its figure should not be added to category totals.
What did the report say about older adults and critical infrastructure?
People aged 60 and older
Among complaints with age information, people aged 60 and older accounted for 147,127 complaints and approximately $4.8 billion in reported losses. The report says this age group had the most complaints and losses among age groups. Not every complaint included age information, so the figures do not describe all IC3 complaints.
Critical infrastructure organizations
Critical infrastructure organizations submitted 4,878 cyber-threat complaints. Ransomware and data breaches were the most frequently reported cyber threats among these organizations, according to the report.
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How should you interpret IC3’s figures?
- They are reported figures. The totals reflect complaints and loss information submitted to IC3, not every incident or every victim’s complete costs.
- Complaint count and loss are different measures. Phishing/spoofing led in complaint volume; investment fraud led the listed crime-type loss categories.
- Some costs are not included. For ransomware, the report’s adjusted loss figure excludes estimated lost business, time, wages, files, equipment, and third-party remediation. Some organizations also did not report a loss amount.
- Categories and descriptors can overlap. Do not add broader groupings or descriptors such as cyber-enabled fraud or cryptocurrency to the crime-type totals as though they were separate, mutually exclusive crimes.
How do you report cybercrime to the FBI?
Submit a complaint through the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Provide the details and documentation you have about the incident, such as relevant dates, accounts, communications, transaction information, or other records. IC3 receives complaints for analysis, referrals, and public awareness; filing a report is not a promise that money will be recovered.
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