According to a new report by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), India ranks among the top five countries in terms of victims of cyber crimes across the world. Reports from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaints Center (IC3) have shown that even though India ranks in the top five, the US and UK have significantly more victims. cyber crime Worldwide.
According to the report, the US accounted for 4,66,501 victims in 2021, followed by the UK with 3,03,949. Canada and India followed with 5,788 and 3,131 victims, respectively. It ranked a total of 20 countries that recorded the highest number of victims worldwide. Pakistan, China and other countries came after India. There are just over 25,000 victims in other countries around the world.
“In 2021, IC3 received a record number of complaints from the US public: 847,376 filed complaints, a 7% increase from 2020, with potential losses exceeding $6.9 billion,” the report said.
In 2021, business-email settlement schemes (BECs) caused losses of $2.4 billion. These hacks target companies that have suppliers overseas and do wire transfers. Between 2017 and 2021, IC3 has received a total of 2,760,044 complaints, with losses of $18.7 billion.
In addition, the report said that IC3 received 23,903 complaints related to technical support fraud in 70 countries. In such scams, fraudsters dupe individuals by claiming to provide customer support, security and other technical support. Such scammers are generally known to operate from India, whose victims are worldwide.
Losses from technical support scams totaled more than $347 million, an increase of over 137% from 2020.
Finally, according to the report, almost 60% of the victims were over 60 years of age. Such victims suffered a total loss of $238 million. Phishing, pharma scams, vishing (voice phishing) were among the top cyber scams committed in 2021.