FBI Reports 300% Increase in Reported Cybercrimes

According to The Hill news Agency, the FBI’s department IC3, or Internet Crime Complaint Center, has received up to 3,000 to 4,000 complaints and crime reports daily during the COVID-19 outbreak. Before the outbreak, the department received only an average of 1,000 reports each day. Google also sees increased phishing attacks, as reported by Business Insider. These reports hypothesize that American and international hackers are taking advantage of increased American activities on the internet as more people are in quarantine or working from home.

Aside from the pandemic, we must be informed that in 2013 many large website providers became victims of a large-scale data breach. Yahoo was the first target, then eBay, Marriot international even Facebook, among many others, have fallen victim. These data breaches result in hackers getting their hands on user data, which includes usernames, passwords, and any other sensitive information saved within the site’s server. Hackers may cross-check information gained from these sites to identify civilians and design social engineering tactics to take advantage of them. Moreover, these online identities may also be sold on the dark web for the hacker’s profit, so other hackers may also take advantage of the identified individuals.

Internet servers are being breached more frequently than ever, along with more presence on the internet, users are more susceptible to online attacks than before. Please be sure to keep your online identities safe by all means necessary so that your offline identity will be secure as well.

Reference

Jenna Walter. “COVID-19 News: FBI Reports 300% Increase in Reported Cybercrimes.” Retrieved May 2, 2022 from the World Wide Web: https://www.imcgrupo.com/covid-19-news-fbi-reports-300-increase-in-reported-cybercrimes/

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