Cybersecurity

5 Internet crimes you need to pay attention to

A new FBI report on Internet crime highlights the most devastating cybercrime with reported losses exceeding $3.5 billion in 2019.

The FBI based its report on 467,000 complaints by the public to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2019.

SIM swapping is an emerging high-profile crime, the FBI cited in the report. In a SIM swap, a wireless carrier is tricked into switching the SIM linked to the subscriber to the criminal’s SIM. In one case based in San Francisco, the arrest of a SIM swapping group leader led to the seizure of over $18 million, five vehicles, a $900,000 home, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewelry, the FBI said in March 2019.

Here are the five Internet crimes the FBI is focusing on.

PHISHING

This spans many categories of crimes. Victims of phishing and related crimes totaled 114,702 victims, by far the largest number, with losses totaling almost $58 million last year. Phishing is defined by the FBI as unsolicited email, text messages, and telephone calls purportedly from a legitimate company requesting personal, financial, and/or login credentials...