Online fraud in the United States - Statistics & Facts

Online fraud is an intended action by internet users to trick the targets into potentially harmful actions that can result in victims losing money and personal or confidential information or causing other damage. While online fraud is considered a cyber crime, the main difference between different types of online crime is that it tricks victims into performing harmful actions voluntarily. Often, fraud campaigns hide or fake information and impersonate certain people or companies for this purpose. In the United States, the number of cyber crime cases, including online fraud, has increased significantly in the past few years, going from around 467 thousand in 2019 to more than 800 thousand in 2022. Accordingly, the monetary losses caused by cyber criminals has seen a spike from 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2019 to 10.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2022.

In 2022 the main cyber threats to internet users in the United States were mobile or SMS scam attempts, smishing, and phishing attempts. Moreover, around 36 percent of global users reported experiencing mobile or SMS scams. Online fraud is an increasing threat not only for consumers but for companies, too. In an early 2023 report, around a third of surveyed Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) of organizations worldwide mentioned e-mail fraud as the most significant cyber threat for their organization.

Types of online fraud

Along with technological developments, fraudsters constantly develop new techniques. In 2023, online fraud can take different forms: phishing, scams, spam, business e-mail compromise (BEC), identity theft, spoofing, smishing, vishing, or internet banking fraud. While these have quite similar characteristics, each has its specifics.

Phishing

Phishing is one of the main types of online scams. Organizations worldwide constantly develop ways to identify phishing e-mails. Despite all the effort that parties interested in e-mail security put in, it remains one of the most challenging security threats for global organizations. Research and development, supply chain, and management departments demonstrated the highest failure rate in simulated phishing attacks. As of June 2023, the District of Columbia ranked first among U.S. states, with the highest number of phishing attack victims per 100,000 residents. In the same year, the population of Arkansas lost over 80,000 U.S. per 100,000 residents.

Business e-mail compromise in the U.S.

In 2022, over a quarter of global business e-mail compromise (BEC) targeted the Americas. In the same year, the number of individuals in the United States affected by BEC attacks was nearly 22 thousand. The financial losses originated from these attacks amounted to 2.74 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, almost 1 billion more than in 2020.

Seniors targeted by online scams

Fraud campaigns usually target the most vulnerable groups. Taking advantage of the limited tech skills of older adults, they succeed in tricking them in most cases. In 2022, individuals between 30 and 39 years in the United States filed the highest number of complaints about cyber crime, including various types of online fraud. Despite this, the most financially impacted were victims over 60 years. In 2022, the monetary loss reported by seniors was around 3.1 billion U.S. dollars. Tech support fraud was the most frequently reported cyber crime among older adults. In recent years, cryptocurrency scams caused the elderly the highest financial losses.

This text provides general information. Statista assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.

Financial losses through cyber crime U.S.: 12.5bn USD

Most commonly reported cyber crime U.S.: Phishing

U.S. state with the highest reported cyber crime losses: California (2.15bn USD)

Editor’s Picks Current statistics on this topic

Number of business e-mail compromise (BEC) victims in the United States from 2020 to 2023

Cyber Crime

U.S. number of BEC victims 2020-2023

Number of phishing attack victims in the United States from 2018 to 2023

Cyber Crime

U.S. number of phishing victims 2018-2023

Cyber Crime

Number of cyber crime victims among U.S. seniors 2022, by type

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Online scam encounters

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Phishing and spam

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BEC scam

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Identity theft

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Romance scams

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Elder fraud

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Other types of online fraud

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Awareness and protection

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