Cybercrimes Soar In 2008

Internet-based crime increased by 33 percent in 2008, making it the biggest year ever for reported cybercrime incidents, according to an Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) annual report.

The IC3 is a partnership between the FBI and the nonprofit National White Collar Crime Center. The organization collects and analyzes data about computer crime and then refers complaints to law enforcement agencies nationwide. The IC3's annual reports are a snapshot of the most common Internet crimes, where they occur, and who is victimized in these schemes.

Of the 275,284 complaints received by the IC3 in 2008, approximately 73,000 were referred to U.S. law enforcement agencies for prosecution. The most common complaint of 2008 was non-delivery of promised merchandise, followed by online auction fraud, credit card fraud and investment scams.

Specifically, cyberfraud that used auction sites such as eBay and other sites such as craigslist.com to scam users contributed to a 32 percent rise in non-delivery of promised merchandise from the previous year.

Other types of fraud included online investment scams similar to the $65 billion Ponzi scheme committed by New York financier Bernard Madoff, which exploited new investors to fund existing investment endeavors.

The report indicated that cybercriminals were increasingly relying on social networking sites as an attack vector to deliver spam and malicious information-stealing code.

The report also highlighted a development in identity-theft schemes, in which cybercriminals sent e-mail messages that impersonated official FBI sites used to glean credit card numbers and bank information submitted by unsuspecting victims. The e-mail messages enticed users by maintaining federal officials needed bank account information to help with investigations of money that was illegally transferred to Nigeria, while promising they would receive a financial reward for participating.

The report included a breakdown by percentages of the Internet scams that received the most complaints, and the average dollar loss per complaint:

• Non-delivery of merchandise/payment: $800 (32.9%);

• Auction fraud: $610 (25.5%);

• Credit/debit card fraud: $223 (9%);

• Confidence fraud: $2,000 (7.9%)

• Computer fraud: $1,000 (6.2%)

• Check fraud: $3,000 (5.4%)

• Nigerian letter fraud: $1,650 (2.8%)

Other highlights of the IC3's 2008 report reveal:

• 77.4 percent of the perpetrators identified in the IC3's complaints were male. Half of those perpetrators lived in California, New York, Florida, Texas, and the District of Columbia. The report, however, also cited a case involving a Virginia woman, Rachel Trent, who duped many consumers on the eBay auction site. According to authorities, Trent advertised rare baseball and football cards on eBay. Once a consumer paid her for the cards, she sent them a worthless card or nothing at all. The Cyber Task Force arrested Trent, who is now serving four years in prison;

• Worldwide, the perpetrators identified in the IC3's complaints lived in the U.S. (66.1%), the United Kingdom (10.5%), Nigeria (7.5%), and Canada (3.1%);

• 55.4 percent of the consumers who filed complaints with the IC3 were men. Nearly half of them were 30-50 years old. One-third of those complainants lived in California, Florida, Texas, and New York.

• 92.4 percent of the IC3's complaints came from the United States. The organization also received complaints from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and France;

• Men lost more money in Internet crimes than women. The ratio is $1.69 lost per male to every $1.00 lost per female;

• 74 percent of the fraudulent Internet contact came by e-mail; 28.9 percent came from Web sites.

 Share