What happened
Americans lost a record $21 billion to cybercrime in 2025, according to new figures released by the FBI through its Internet Crime Complaint Center. The bureau said it received 859,532 complaints last year, with reported losses rising by about 33 percent from 2024. The most costly category was investment fraud, which accounted for roughly $6.5 billion in losses, followed by business email compromise at $2.9 billion and tech support scams at more than $1.4 billion. People over the age of 60 were hit especially hard, filing 147,127 complaints tied to about $4.8 billion in losses. The report also said ransomware remained a major threat, with complaints rising 9 percent from the prior year and attacks increasingly affecting critical infrastructure organizations.
Who is affected
The direct impact falls on U.S. individuals and organizations targeted by cyber-enabled fraud, extortion, and compromise schemes. The FBI said older Americans suffered the highest reported losses, while businesses and critical infrastructure entities also faced continued pressure from ransomware and business email compromise activity.
Why CISOs should care
This matters because the scale of reported loss shows cybercrime is continuing to grow not only as a technical threat but as a major financial and operational risk. The figures also show how fraud, ransomware, and email compromise are affecting both consumers and enterprises at the same time, forcing security leaders to think across workforce risk, executive fraud exposure, and broader resilience planning.
3 practical actions
- Use loss trends to reset priorities: Reassess whether fraud prevention, email security, and ransomware resilience are getting enough attention relative to the scale of harm reflected in the latest complaint data.
- Focus on the most costly attack paths: Treat investment scams, business email compromise, and tech support fraud as major risk categories because they drove some of the largest reported losses.
- Include vulnerable populations in defense planning: Extend awareness and protection efforts to groups most heavily targeted by fraud, especially where employees, customers, or partners may be more exposed to financial scams.
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