FBI Tracked Nearly 300K Cyberattacks in U.S. in 2016

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) last year tracked nearly 300,000 cyberattacks in the United States and those attacks resulted in more than $1.6 billion in total losses. But apparently those numbers are mere drops in a large bucket.

The FBI said complaints of cyberattacks are difficult to verify and most of the time they’re not reported. They estimate that only about 15 percent of cyberattacks are reported to federal authorities.

There were nearly 1,900 instances of internet crime in Arkansas in 2016, from nonpayment scams to cyberattacks on state agencies, according to the FBI. By comparison, the neighboring state of Texas had over 21,000 reported instances of cybercrime attacks, more than the totals from the neighboring states of Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma combined.

Texas ranked second behind California, which counted more than 39,000 cybercrime victims last year. FBI totals for South Central states are: Arkansas — 1,853; Louisiana — 3,002; Oklahoma — 2,455; Texas — 21,441.

According to the FBI, more than $1.3 billion was lost in 2016 through cyberattacks in the U.S., which is the highest total since 2000.

While Arkansas attacks are a small percentage of the 298,728 cyberattack complaints tracked nationwide in 2016, the FBI said Arkansas is seeing more complex attacks, including cyberattacks from overseas.

“Doing something like that is not easy,” FBI Special Agent Sebastian Montes said. “It takes an individual with a level equivalent to computer scientists. These folks, they’re very savvy and they have the luxury of time.”

Those complex attacks show a global trend in evolving techniques of infiltrating government, business and personal computer systems, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

The most common internet crimes reported in 2016 were nonpayment or non-delivery scams, when a product or service isn’t compensated or never received.

The FBI noted that ransomware, software that blocks access to a computer system until money is paid, is also on the rise in the U.S. In 2016, $2.4 million was paid in ransomware attacks.

“The advice that we gave them and we give everybody is we don’t advocate paying the ransom,” Montes said. “That’ll only encourage them to do it more. However, the reality of the situation is if they don’t have backups, they’re out of options.”

California reported the highest total loss from cyberattacks at $222.5 million, followed by New York with a loss of $106.2 million. In Texas, cyberattacks resulted in $77.1 million in losses in 2016. Cybercrime related loss totals in Arkansas in 2016 came to $7.9 million; in Louisiana, $13.2 million and in Oklahoma, $15.4 million.