Cyber Crime Statistics 2026: FBI and FTC Losses, Complaints and Trends

Cyber crime statistics from the FBI show losses reached $20.877 billion in 2025 across 1,008,597 complaints, a 26% increase in losses from 2024. Those totals come from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2025 Internet Crime Report. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) runs a separate count: in 2025 the FTC received 3 million fraud reports from consumers, who reported $15.9 billion in losses.

Both totals capture only what victims chose to report. When taking underreporting into account, the FTC has estimated that the overall cost of fraud to consumers for 2024 could be as high as $195.9 billion. The figures below come from FBI annual reports and alerts, FTC releases, and national statistics from the UK and Australia, with every dollar figure tied to the period it covers.

Key Takeaways

• Cyber-enabled fraud produced 452,868 complaints and $17,697,074,980 in losses, which is 45% of all 2025 complaints and almost 85% of all losses reported to IC3.
• Phishing/spoofing drew 191,561 complaints in 2025, against 72,984 for investment fraud, yet investment fraud losses were 40 times larger than phishing losses.
• Victims aged 60 and over accounted for 37.1% of all 2025 losses reported to IC3.
• Cryptocurrency complaints totaled 181,565 in 2025, with $11.366 billion in losses.
• The $679,013,183 that the FBI froze through its fund-recovery process equals 3.25% of all 2025 losses reported to IC3.
• Approximately half of the total reported fraud losses for 2025 are attributable to investment scams in FTC data, with consumers reporting over $7.9 billion in investment scam losses.
• Annual losses reported to IC3 in 2025 were 4.97 times the 2020 total.

Editor’s Choice

• IC3 reported losses in 2025: $20.877 billion.
• IC3 complaints in 2025: 1,008,597.
• FTC reported fraud losses in 2025: $15.9 billion.
• Average loss per IC3 complaint in 2025: $20,699.
• Investment fraud losses reported to IC3 in 2025: $8,648,617,756.
• AI-related complaints to IC3 in 2025: 22,364.

Cyber Crime Complaints and Losses Reported to the FBI

• IC3 logged 1,008,597 complaints in 2025 with $20.877 billion in losses.
• Losses reported to IC3 rose 26% from 2024.
• IC3 now averages almost 3,000 complaints per day, up from a few thousand per month in its early years.
• Investment-related fraud was once again the largest component of these losses, followed by business email compromises and tech support scams.
• Cyber-enabled fraud accounts for 45% of all 2025 complaints and almost 85% of all losses reported to IC3 in 2025.
• IC3 received complaints from more than 200 countries in 2025, which accounts for almost $1.6 billion of the overall 2025 losses.

Source: FBI IC3, 2025 Annual Report

About This Data

The figures are compiled from 13 sources. Eight are FBI annual reports and public service announcements, 3 are FTC releases and testimony, and 2 are national statistics and cyber agency reports from the UK and Australia. Only government and official agency data published from April 2024 to October 2026 qualified. Figures are reviewed on a rolling basis and updated when the agencies publish new editions.

Cyber Crime Losses and Complaints by Year

• Losses reported to IC3 in 2025 were 4.97 times the $4.2 billion reported in 2020.
• Losses rose 33% in 2024, and 256,256 complaints that year reported an actual loss.
• 2025 brought 1,008,597 complaints, and losses continued to climb, surpassing the $20 billion mark.
• 2023 brought a nearly 10% increase in complaints received and a 22% increase in losses compared to 2022.

Losses climbed every year in that series, but complaint counts did not. The complaint chart below dips in 2022 and again in 2024 before the jump to a record in 2025.

Recent Developments

• October 2026: The FBI warned that North Korean IT workers are increasingly using facilitators and have used stolen identities, extortion and threats of physical violence to demand payments.
• September 2026: Between January 2025 and July 2026, IC3 received nearly 61,000 complaints of law enforcement or government impersonation scams, with losses totaling more than $1.6 billion.
• September 2026: The FBI reported that since late 2025, malicious cyber actors have targeted prominent victims and their families with malicious links using “OAuth consent phishing”.
• Year ending March 2026: The Crime Survey for England and Wales put fraud at an estimated 4.5 million fraud incidents in the year ending March 2026, up from 4.2 million, a change it rated not statistically significant.
• July 2026: The FBI updated its warning on scammers impersonating FBI personnel who handle IC3 complaints to revictimize people who already lost money.

Most Common Types of Cyber Crime

• Phishing and spoofing led all crime types with 191,561 complaints in 2025.
• Extortion followed with 89,129 complaints and investment fraud with 72,984.
• Personal data breach complaints reached 67,456.
• Tech and customer support scams drew 47,794 complaints and government impersonation 32,424.
• Ransomware accounted for 3,611 complaints and SIM swap for 971.
• Among descriptors, cryptocurrency appeared in 181,565 complaints and AI in 22,364.

Where do most cyber incidents begin?

Phishing/spoofing generated 191,561 complaints in 2025, ahead of extortion at 89,129. On the consumer side, receipt of a text message was the top reported contact method in 2025, while social media is the top contact method by aggregate reported losses in FTC data.

Costliest Types of Cyber Crime

• Investment fraud cost victims $8,648,617,756 in 2025 and was once again the largest component of these losses.
• Business email compromise caused $3,046,598,558 in losses and tech and customer support scams $2,134,675,818.
• Personal data breach complaints carried $1,314,923,988 in losses.
• Phishing/spoofing losses were $215,843,126, small next to its complaint count.
• Call center fraud, made up of tech and customer support and government impersonation complaints, totaled more than 80,000 complaints with losses exceeding $2.9 billion.

Key finding: The FBI’s 2025 data shows a split between volume and damage. Phishing/spoofing produced 191,561 complaints and $215,843,126 in losses, while investment fraud produced 72,984 complaints and $8,648,617,756 in losses. Counting reports alone points attention at the wrong crime.

How Cyber Crime Categories Changed, 2023 to 2025

• Investment complaints rose from 39,570 in 2023 to 72,984 in 2025, an increase of 84.4%.
• Government impersonation complaints went from 14,190 in 2023 to 32,424 in 2025, up 128.5%.
• Phishing/spoofing complaints fell from 298,878 in 2023 to 191,561 in 2025.
• Phishing/spoofing losses climbed from $18,728,550 in 2023 to $215,843,126 in 2025, 11.5 times the 2023 figure.
• Ransomware losses were $59,641,384 in 2023, $12,473,156 in 2024 and $32,320,105 in 2025.

Source: FBI IC3, 2025 Annual Report (three-year comparison)

Complaint growth and loss growth do not move together. The loss table below shows investment losses climbing every year and phishing losses rising even as phishing complaints fell.

Source: FBI IC3, 2025 Annual Report (three-year comparison)

Are cyber crimes increasing?

Reported losses are. Losses reported to IC3 rose 26% from 2024 to 2025, and FTC-reported fraud losses have increased year-over-year in the last six years and have risen nearly 430% since 2020. Complaint counts are less consistent, falling in two of the last four years before the 2025 jump.

Cryptocurrency and Investment Fraud Statistics

• Complaints involving cryptocurrency reached 181,565 in 2025, a 21% increase from 2024, with $11.366 billion in losses, a 22% increase.
• Crypto complaints carried a $62,604 average loss, and 18,589 complainants lost more than $100,000.
• Cryptocurrency investment fraud was the highest source of financial losses to Americans in 2025 with $7.2 billion reported in losses.
• Crypto investment fraud generated 61,559 complaints, a 48% increase in complaints from 2024.
• IC3 received more than 13,400 complaints reporting the use of cryptocurrency kiosks, with losses over $388 million, a 23% increase in complaints and a 58% increase in losses from 2024.
• Complainants aged 60 and over reported $4,432,224,488 in crypto losses.

Who is usually behind cyber attacks?

For the costliest category, the FBI names organized crime. Cryptocurrency investment scams are largely perpetrated by organized criminal enterprises based in Southeast Asia using victims of human trafficking as forced labor to run the scam operations. State actors appear too: North Korea uses thousands of state-controlled remote IT workers to infiltrate western companies.

Cyber Crime Victims by Age

• Complainants aged 60 and over filed 201,266 complaints in 2025, up 37% from 2024, and reported $7.748 billion in losses, up 59%.
• Older complainants averaged a $38,500 loss, and 12,444 of them lost more than $100,000.
• Complainants aged 40 to 49 reported $2.957 billion in losses and those aged 50 to 59 reported $3.7 billion.
• Victims under 20 filed 31,254 complaints with $67.1 million in losses.
• Minors aged 17 or younger filed 13,168 complaints with $12,988,892 in losses, driven by sextortion, cyberbullying and online grooming.

Who are the typical victims of cyber crime?

Older adults file the most complaints and lose the most money. People aged 60 and over filed 201,266 complaints in 2025, more than any other age group, and reported $7.7 billion in losses. They filed 20% of all IC3 complaints, so their share of losses runs far ahead of their share of reports. Their $7.748 billion in losses equals 37.1% of the 2025 total.

Sextortion and AI-Enabled Fraud

• IC3 received more than 75,000 submissions regarding sextortion in 2025 and referred more than 5,700 submissions involving minors to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
• People aged 20 to 29 filed 22,061 sextortion reports, while those 60 and over reported $14,894,547 in adjusted losses.
• IC3 received more than 22,000 complaints reporting AI-related information, with adjusted losses exceeding $893 million.
• Businesses reported losses over $30 million to business email compromise scams involving AI, and victims lost over $19 million to romance scams with a likely AI nexus.
• Victims claimed losses over $5 million in 2025 to distress scams that use voice cloning to mimic a relative.

Worth noting: AI is a descriptor in IC3 data, not a crime type of its own. The 2025 report tags 22,364 complaints and $893,346,472 in losses as AI related, and those complaints are also counted under categories such as business email compromise and romance fraud.

Ransomware and Business Email Compromise Statistics

• IC3 received more than 3,600 complaints reporting ransomware, with losses exceeding $32 million.
• The most frequently reported variants accounted for 56.8% of ransomware incidents and almost half (49.8%) of ransomware losses.
• Akira, Qilin and INC./Lynx/Sinobi were the top three reported ransomware variants.
• IC3 received more than 1,400 ransomware complaints from businesses and organizations not related to a critical sector, led by legal services at 18%.
• Business email compromise losses were $2,946,830,270 in 2023, $2,770,151,146 in 2024 and $3,046,598,558 in 2025.

Why it matters: Ransomware adjusted losses do not normally include estimates of lost business, time, wages, files, or equipment, or any third-party remediation services. The IC3 ransomware total of about $32 million counts only the losses victims reported to IC3, so it is a floor rather than the full cost of an attack.

Government and Law Enforcement Impersonation Scams

• Between January 2025 and July 2026, IC3 received nearly 61,000 complaints of law enforcement or government impersonation scams, with losses totaling more than $1.6 billion.
• Jury duty and missed court date scams produced 6,833 complaints with losses totaling nearly $36 million.
• Scams impersonating foreign law enforcement drew 1,809 complaints with losses totaling more than $140 million.
• FTC data shows people reported losing about $920 million to government impersonators in 2025, up from $789 million in 2024.
• Reported losses to business impersonators reached nearly $1 billion, up from $866 million.

Source: FBI IC3, public service announcement, September 2026

Recovery scams: Scammers are impersonating FBI personnel who handle IC3 complaints to deceive and revictimize people, using AI-generated videos and spoofed websites. A message from someone claiming to handle an IC3 complaint is a known second-stage scam; file reports only through the official IC3 site.

FTC Consumer Fraud Reports and Losses

• In its March 2026 testimony to Congress, the FTC received 3 million fraud reports in 2025 with $15.9 billion in losses, up from 2.6 million reports and over $12 billion in losses the previous year.
• Imposter scams were the most frequently reported fraud, with more than 1 million reports and more than $3.5 billion in losses.
• Investment scams cost consumers over $7.9 billion, with an average individual loss of over $10,000 in 2025.
• Consumers lost the most money through bank payments, followed by cryptocurrency, while credit card payments were the most frequently identified payment method.
• In FY 2025, consumers reported aggregate losses of over $2 billion when social media was identified as the contact method.

Source: FTC testimony to the Joint Economic Committee, March 2026

By the numbers: The FTC says people reported losing $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025, and nearly one in three fraud reports were about imposter scams. Total reported fraud losses of about $16 billion in 2025 were the highest on record, an increase of about 25% over 2024.

Cyber Crime Losses by State

• California led all states with $3,675 million in reported losses in 2025.
• Texas followed with $1,826 million and Florida with $1,596 million.
• New York reported $1,226 million and New Jersey $660 million.
• Canada had the most IC3 complainants outside the United States, with 7,479, followed by India with 5,879.

How Much Stolen Money Gets Frozen

• The IC3 Recovery Asset Team (RAT) runs the Financial Fraud Kill Chain (FFKC), and the IC3 RAT handled 3,900 FFKC incidents in 2025, covering $1,163,919,846 in attempted theft.
• The process froze $679,013,183, a 58% success rate.
• Frozen funds equal 3.25% of the $20.877 billion in losses reported to IC3 in 2025.

Source: FBI IC3, 2025 Annual Report

The takeaway: The FFKC freezes funds for victims of fraudulent domestic and international transactions, and it froze more than half of the attempted theft that reached it. The constraint is reach: most losses never enter the process, so reporting quickly to the bank and to IC3 matters.

Cyber Crime Statistics Outside the United States

• In England and Wales, fraud prevalence rose 0.7 ppt to 7.8%, and bank and credit account fraud rose 15% to around 2.8 million incidents in the year ending March 2026.
• The survey recorded a 10% increase in the number of fraud victims over the previous year.
• Computer misuse was around 55% lower than the year ending March 2017 survey (around 1.8 million incidents).
• The same Office for National Statistics bulletin cites the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 to 2026, which showed that 19% of businesses and 14% of charities had been victims of at least one cybercrime in the past year.
• The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) received cybercrime reports down 3% in FY2024-25, on average a report every 6 minutes.
• The average self-reported cost of cybercrime per report for Australian businesses rose 50% to A$80,850, and for large businesses 219% to A$202,700.

Source: Office for National Statistics, 2026; Australian Signals Directorate, Annual Cyber Threat Report 2024-2025

Conclusion

Losses reported to the FBI hit $20.877 billion in 2025 and the FTC logged $15.9 billion from 3 million fraud reports. The two counts come from separate reporting systems and differ in scope. In both, investment fraud is the costliest category, much of it cryptocurrency investment fraud in IC3 data, while the most-reported category is phishing in IC3 data and imposter scams in FTC data.

The next IC3 annual report and the FTC’s next data release will show whether the record losses of 2025 hold. Until then, the freeze figures are the practical number to remember: the FFKC froze 58% of the attempted theft that reached it in 2025, but only a small share of reported losses ever reached it.