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The figures are staggering—and they show just how big the problem has become. As the Heise Online portal reports, citing recent FBI reports, cybercriminals caused nearly $21 billion in damages in the U.S. in 2025. This figure significantly surpassed the previous record. Compared to the previous year, reported losses increased by about 26 percent. The number of cases also rose sharply, climbing above the one-million mark for the first time.
These figures are based on reports filed with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. There, victims can report online fraud, digital extortion, or other internet crimes. According to the FBI, the center received nearly 3,000 complaints per day last year. This alone underscores just how commonplace digital attacks have become.
Most common: phishing, extortion, and investment fraud
In 2025, Americans reported the highest number of phishing attacks. Approximately 191,000 cases were recorded. This was followed by extortion, with 89,000 reports, and investment fraud, with 72,000 cases. In addition, there were numerous other crimes, such as spoofed business emails, data breaches, ransomware attacks, and SIM swapping.
What stands out here is that the most common attacks are not always the most costly. Once again, particularly high losses were incurred in cases of fraud involving investments and cryptocurrencies. It is precisely in these areas that cybercrime strikes particularly hard.
Crypto investors are hit the hardest
In 2025, investors in the crypto sector suffered the heaviest losses. According to available figures, more than $11 billion was lost in this sector, with over 181,000 reported cases. Traditional investment fraud also remained a major problem, resulting in losses of $8.6 billion.
In total, digital fraud accounted for $17.7 billion in losses. This highlights where the focus lies: Many perpetrators no longer rely on complex hacking attacks in the strict sense, but instead use psychological pressure, false promises, and professionally orchestrated scams.
Older people lose a particularly large amount of money
Once again, older people were hit particularly hard. Americans over the age of 60 reported a total of $7.75 billion in damages. That is more than twice as much as in the 50–60 age group. At the same time, older victims also filed the most complaints.
What is interesting, however, is that in terms of the number of cases, younger people were also far ahead in some instances. People between the ages of 40 and 50, as well as those between 30 and 40, reported more incidents than the group aged 50 to 60. The problem thus affects all age groups. On average, the FBI estimates the loss per victim at $20,699.
New Threat: AI Is Becoming a Fraud Machine
For the first time, the FBI is also reporting AI-enabled fraud cases separately. These 22,300 cases resulted in losses of approximately $893 million. Victims were defrauded using imitation voices, fake profiles, manipulated documents, and deepfake videos.
At least the FBI was able to recover funds and stop transactions in several cases. Nevertheless, the trend remains alarming. The bottom line is clear: cybercrime is no longer a marginal issue, but a widespread phenomenon on an industrial scale. And anyone who still believes they are too insignificant to be targeted by scammers is often making exactly the mistake these criminals are counting on.
Source: heise.de
