What is the most recorded cyber frusd report in the united state
Executive summary
The single most frequently reported type of cyber-enabled fraud in the United States is phishing (including spoofing), which the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported as the top category by victims in recent data – about 193,000 affected individuals in 2024 according to a Statista summary of IC3 figures [1]. That high volume of reports contrasts with a much smaller number of very large-dollar, headline-grabbing cyber fraud investigations — historic criminal cases and forfeitures that reflect scale but not frequency [2] crypto-confidence-scams" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[3].
1. Phishing as the dominant, repeatedly reported crime
Public reporting and aggregated statistics show that phishing — where victims are tricked into revealing credentials or sending money to impostors — is the most commonly logged cybercrime by incident count to federal complaint portals, with roughly 193,000 phishing/spoofing victims recorded in 2024 according to Statista’s compilation of IC3 data [1]. Complementary trend data from Statista and IC3 indicate an overall rise in online fraud and cybercrime complaints in recent years, growing from about 467,000 incidents in 2019 to over 880,000 in 2023, underscoring that phishing sits atop a burgeoning mountain of lower-dollar, high-frequency complaints [4].
2. Frequency vs. headline loss: why the most reported is not the costliest
The most reported category by victim count is not the same metric as the largest financial loss; major prosecutions and seizures highlight different extremes. For example, a 2013 federal indictment described a credit-card hacking and fraud spree said to have cost companies more than $300 million, a case portrayed at the time as one of the largest cyber fraud prosecutions by dollar value [2]. More recent law-enforcement actions focus on crypto-confidence scams with civil forfeiture filings seeking more than $225.3 million in cryptocurrency tied to schemes impacting hundreds of victims [3] [5]. These cases are massive in monetary terms but represent far fewer incidents than the hundreds of thousands of phishing complaints [2] [3].
3. The data sources and their blind spots
The conclusion that phishing is the most reported rests on complaint-center tallies rather than independently verified incidence surveys; Statista’s 2024 figure is derived from IC3 and FBI reporting, which reflects what victims choose to report to federal portals [1]. That methodology captures volume but undercounts unreported crimes and skews toward people and organizations aware of IC3; conversely, DOJ press releases and agency case lists spotlight large, complex schemes that generate significant prosecution and seizure activity but do not reveal prevalence the way complaint tallies do [6] [7] [3]. Where source material does not provide nationally representative victimization surveys, this analysis cannot assert unreported prevalence or absolute rankings beyond reported-complaint counts [1] [4].
4. Context, alternative views, and what “most recorded” can mean
“Most recorded” can be interpreted as most frequently reported (incident count) or most recorded by monetary loss; the sources diverge: IC3/Statista show phishing as the top category by victim count, while high-profile prosecutions and forfeitures document multi-million-dollar schemes in credit-card fraud, securities hacking, and crypto confidence scams that dominate headlines by dollar impact [1] [2] [8] [3]. Law-enforcement pages (FBI, DHS) catalogue major cyber cases and historic incidents — from the Morris Worm that shaped early cybersecurity thinking to modern coordinated seizures — but those lists serve different purposes than complaint statistics and thus must be read as complementary, not contradictory [9] [6] [10]. The reporting suggests a two-tier reality: phishing as the most reported everyday fraud by count, and a smaller set of large schemes that account for enormous financial damage and prosecutorial focus [1] [2] [3].