- The FBI report reveals a serious increase in ransomware in 2024
- Ransomware attacks increased 9% in 2024
- Cryptocurrency fraud also claimed more victims than ever
The FBI has published a report that describes how expensive ransomware attacks were in 2024, and attacks once again increased to claim more victims than ever.
Complaints about attacks increased 9% in 2024, and were even more expensive for the victims, which cost a record of $ 16.6 billion, an increase of 33% of 2023. Incostably, critical infrastructure represented almost half of all ransomware complaints received, most likely a reflection of growing geopolitical tensions that lead to attacks with the state sponsored by the state sponsored by the state sponsored by the state sponsored by the state sponsored by the state. and motivated political attacks.
Critical infrastructure is the last objective for cybercriminals, since it provides key services and inactivity time is expensive and dangerous, which means that companies are often more likely to pay ransomware gangs to unlock their data or systems.
An amazing amount
The FBI report also shows that almost 200,000 complaints were received for phishing/impersonation attacks, and another 85,000 were presented in relation to extortion incidents.
Cybernetic enabled fraud represented a huge 83% of all losses reported in 2024, which represents a serious but well established in tactics to digital crime.
“These growing losses are even more worrying because last year, the FBI took significant measures to make it more difficult, and more expensive, so that malicious actors are successful,” said B. Chad Yarbrough, director of Operations of the FBI for criminal and cybernetic.
“We treat Lockbit a serious blow, one of the most active ransomware groups in the world. Since 2022, we have offered thousands of deciphering keys to ransomware victims, avoiding more than $ 800 million in payments.”
The report also points to a serious increase in cryptocurrency losses, reaching $ 9.3 billion, 66% more than 2023.
The FBI received almost 150,000 complaints of cryptocurrency scams, most frequent were fraudulent investment schemes, a topic that we have seen in recent years with thousands of false cryptocurrency sites established to catch users in false reward schemes.
