The FBI recently released their Internet Crime Report 2021 which revealed significant findings:
- Business email compromise (BEC) remains the biggest source of financial loss, totaling $2.4 billion up from $1.8 billion in 2020.
- Americans lost $6.9 billion in 2021 to scammers, BEC and cryptocurrency theft related to financial and romance scams. The figure grew $2.7 billion in one year…a 52.4% increase of losses in one year.
- BEC scams shifted from spoofing emails to spoofing CEOs on Zoom meetings. The fraudster would insert a still picture of the CEO with no audio, or a ‘deep fake’ audio, though which fraudsters, acting as business executives, would then claim their audio/video was not working properly. The fraudster then uses video to instruct employees to complete a wire transfer or use an executive’s compromised email to deliver wiring instructions.
- Cryptocurrency laundering reached $8.6 billion last year. New to the arsenal of criminal tools include “tumbler” software that splits funds into small sums and blends it with other transactions before sending the amounts to new addresses or accounts.
- The FBI reported that ransomware criminal groups mostly used phishing emails, stolen remote desktop protocols (RDP) credentials, and software to infect their victims.
The FBI report confirms the steep rise in ransomware and cybercriminal activity since the pandemic. Cybercriminals continue to find new and innovative ways to steal and break into companies IT systems.
To help businesses in the Inland Empire, Tech Guardian is offering a FREE Network Evaluation to qualified businesses (15 computer users and at least 1 server). This report will establish a benchmark to find open threats where cybercriminals can get into your network. For more information, please call 951-319-4080 or visit www.Tech Guardian.com/cybersecurity.
