BEVERLY HILLS, March 18, (THEWILL) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a new report has ranked Nigeria among the worst countries affected by cyber crime.
The 2020 Internet Crime Report includes information from 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crime—an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019—and reported losses exceeding $4.2 billion.
State-specific statistics have also been released and can be found within the 2020 Internet Crime Report and in the accompanying 2020 State Reports.
According to the report, Nigeria is ranked 16th worst affected country. Other countries that ranked better than Nigeria are Pakistan, China, Columbia, and Hong Kong.
Apart from Nigeria, South Africa was also listed among the “worst” 20. South Africa rated sixth with 1,754 victims while Nigeria had 443 victims.
In a statement, Paul Abbate, FBI Deputy Director, said IC3 received a record number of complaints from Americans in 2020: 791,790, with reported losses exceeding $4.1 billion. The figure represents a 69% increase in total complaints from 2019.
The FBI noted that Business E-mail Compromise (BEC) schemes continued to be the costliest.
There were 19,369 complaints with an adjusted loss of approximately $1.8 billion.
Through the Recovery Asset Team, IC3 worked with its partners to successfully freeze approximately $380 million of the $462 million in reported losses in 2020, nearly 82%.
The top three crimes reported by victims in 2020 were phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery scams, and extortion. Victims lost the most money to business email compromise scams, romance and confidence schemes, and investment fraud. Notably, 2020 saw the emergence of scams exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic. The IC3 received over 28,500 complaints related to COVID-19, with fraudsters targeting both businesses and individuals.
Phishing scams had 241,342 complaints, with adjusted losses of over $54 million, while the number of ransomware incidents also continues to rise, with 2,474 incidents reported in 2020..
The top 20 countries: 1. United Kingdom; 2. Canada; 3. India; 4. Greece; 5. Australia; 6. South Africa; 7. France; 8. Germany; 9. Mexico; 10. Belgium; 11. Brazil; 12. Philippines; 13. Italy; 14. Spain; 15. Netherlands; 16. Nigeria; 17. Pakistan; 18. China; 19. Colombia; 20. Hong Kong.
The IC3 gives the public a reliable and convenient mechanism to report suspected internet crime to the FBI. The FBI analyzes and shares information from submitted complaints for investigative and intelligence purposes, for law enforcement, and for public awareness.
With the release of the 2020 Internet Crime Report, the FBI wants to remind the public to immediately report suspected criminal internet activity to the IC3 at ic3.gov. By reporting internet crime, victims are not only alerting law enforcement to the activity but aiding in the overall fight against cybercrime.
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