- The FBI report reveals a serious increase in ransomware in 2024
- Ransomware attacks increased by 9% in 2024
- Cryptocurrency fraud has also claimed more victims than ever
The FBI has published a report describing how expensive ransomware attacks are in 2024, the attacks when claiming more victims than ever.
Complaints concerning attacks increased by 9% in 2024 and were even more expensive for the victims, costing a record of $ 16.6 billion – an increase of 33% compared to 2023. Worry, the critical infrastructure represented almost half of all the complaints of ransomware received, most likely the reflection of the rise in geopolitical tensions leading to attacks with political motivation and political motivation attacks and politically motivated.
Critical infrastructure is the last target for cybercriminals, as it provides key services and downtime are both expensive and dangerous, which means that companies are often more likely to pay ransomware gangs to unlock their data or systems.
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The FBI report also shows that nearly 200,000 complaints have been received for phishing / usurpation attacks, and 85,000 others have been filed with extortion incidents.
Cyber-compatible fraud represented 83% of all the losses reported in 2024, representing a serious but well established change from tactics to digital crime.
“These growing losses are even more worrying because last year, the FBI took important measures to make the actors more difficult and more expensive for malware succeed,” said B. Chad Yarbrough, FBI operations director for the criminal and cyber.
“We brought a hard blow to Lockbit, one of the most active ransomware groups in the world. Since 2022, we have offered thousands of decryption keys to ransomware victims, avoiding more than $ 800 million in payments. ”
The report also highlights a serious increase in cryptocurrency loss, reaching $ 9.3 billion – up 66% compared to 2023.
The FBI has received nearly 150,000 complaints from cryptocurrency scams, the most widespread was fraudulent investment diets, a theme that we have seen in recent years with thousands of false cryptocurrency sites created to trap users in false reward patterns.
