FBI reveals top 4 internet crime trends from 2025 as losses hit $20.9 billion
The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2025, with its annual report showing growing losses and investment-related fraud. Let’s take a look at some of the top takeaways from the report.
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The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2025, with its annual report showing growing losses and investment-related fraud. Let’s take a look at some of the top takeaways from the report.
In total, in 2025, reported losses climbed 26% to almost $20.9 billion, as IC3 received over a million complaints from around the globe. The average loss was around $20,700, per the FBI. The 60+ age group filed the most complaints, more than a fifth of the total, and suffered the biggest losses, $7.7 billion, or around 39% of total losses.
Looking at separate trends, here's what the report showed.
- Phishing/spoofing is the top threat
Almost a fifth (191,561) of complaints were registered in this category, while the second most common crime type, extortion, accounted for "only" around 9% of the total cases, closely followed by investment-related crimes and personal data breaches.
- Investment-related crimes are the most painful
While being only third by the count of complaints, investment-related crime brought the biggest losses to victims. According to the FBI, last year, these losses surpassed $8.6 billion, or around 43% of the total. The close runner-up is losses induced by business email compromise ($3 billion, or 15%).
- Cryptocurrency-related crime still dominates
Of the three descriptors used by the FBI – cryptocurrency, AI-related, and crimes against children – the first category dominates the rankings by a wide margin. For example, cryptocurrency was mentioned in 181,565 cases, or around 18% of the total. This descriptor was also attributed to more than $11 billion in losses, or around 55% of the total.
- AI enters the crime scene
In 2025, for the first time, the FBI started registering AI-related internet crimes.
For example, 22,364 complaints last year were related to AI, resulting in more than $893 million in losses. These complaints were received across all age groups, with the 60+ group filing more than 3,100, totaling more than $352 million in losses.
In 2025, for the first time, the FBI started registering AI-related internet crimes.
Once again, AI-related crimes were strongly intertwined with crypto crimes, according to FBI data.
According to the FBI, AI-enabled synthetic content is becoming increasingly difficult to detect and easier to create, which makes criminal schemes against individuals, businesses, and financial institutions more successful.
"It has never been more important to be diligent with your cybersecurity, social media footprint, and electronic interactions," Jose A. Perez, Operations director for the Criminal and Cyber Branch of the FBI, concluded, adding that cyber threats and cyber-enabled crime will continue to evolve as the world embraces emerging technologies such as AI.
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