Internet crimes are up in Indiana as older Hoosiers continue to be particularly victimized by scammers using a variety of increasingly sophisticated tools, a new FBI report shows.
Hoosiers filed 23,659 internet crime complaints in 2024, ranking the state 8th in reports across the U.S., including Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories. Indiana was also No. 3 for complaints per 100,000 citizens, trailing only Alaska and Washington, D.C., at 341.7 complaints per 100,000 citizens, according to an annual report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
Indiana’s 2024 complaint total is a new high. It is a 113% increase over the 11,097 complaints filed in 2023. The last time the state saw this large of an annual increase was from 2018 to 2019, when complaints increased 108% from 4,676 to 9,746. The previous record was in 2020, when there were 12,786 complaints.
Nationally, 859,532 internet crime complaints were filed with the IC3 in 2024 — a 2.4% decrease from 2023’s record 880,418. While the number of complaints decreased, losses did not; they surpassed $16 billion in 2024, a 33% increase from 2023, with the average loss being $19,372, according to the report.
Conversely, while Indiana’s complaints are up, losses from scammers are down. Hoosiers lost more than $125.1 million in 2024, down from a record $162.2 million in 2023. This places Indiana 28th in the country, the report shows.
The FBI report comes as the ways cyber actors can attack both Hoosiers and Americans have grown exponentially. Scammers are increasingly using the internet to steal Americans’ hard-earned savings, and with today’s technology, “it can take mere taps on a keyboard to hijack networks, cripple water systems or even rob virtual exchanges,” said B. Chad Yarbrough, the FBI’s operations director for Criminal and Cyber, in the report.
But one group stands out the most for internet crime: older adults.
Those over the age of 60 suffered the most losses and submitted the most complaints nationwide. This age group lost $4.8 billion and submitted 147,127 complaints, according to the report.
In Indiana, those ages 60 and up lost the most, with reported losses of more than $37.2 million. This age group made 5,324 complaints in 2024, placing Indiana 9th in the nation.
The most common crimes reported among Hoosiers ages 60 and older were led by complaints that were deemed incomplete and couldn’t be categorized into a specific type of crime, followed by phishing/spoofing and tech support scams.
Nationally, fraud represented the bulk of reported losses in 2024. Ransomware was again the most pervasive threat to critical infrastructure, with complaints rising 9% from 2023, the report shows.
Phishing/spoofing, extortion and personal data breaches were the three most common crimes reported nationwide. In terms of losses, the top three crimes were investment crimes at $6.6 billion, business email compromise at $2.8 billion, and tech support at $1.5 billion, the report shows.
Many of the crimes reported both in Indiana and across the U.S. involved the use of cryptocurrency. Yarbrough said in the report that it has “become an enticing means to cheat investors, launder proceeds and engage in other illicit schemes.”
Nearly 149,686 of complaints nationwide involved the use of cryptocurrency as a way to facilitate the crimes. Cryptocurrency consisted of $9.3 billion of the losses, the report shows.
Statewide, there were 1,880 complaints involving cryptocurrency filed in 2024 — with extortion, investment fraud and tech support crimes rounding up the top three crimes reported that used cryptocurrency. This amounted to losses of roughly $48 million — with investment crimes, personal data breach and tech support being among the top crimes.
The tools scammers are using vary, but the use of artificial intelligence in them is increasing. AI could be used to create realistic phishing emails that mimic the writing style of someone you know, to create voice and video deepfakes that are highly convincing impersonations of someone, like a trusted or public figure, or to create a fake but convincing website.
AI can also allow criminals to attack a vast number of targets at scale simultaneously, or to zero in on specific people using data gathered from social media and other platforms, according to the National Council on Aging, which created an AI scam guide for older adults.
The FBI says the total rising losses across the country are “even more concerning” because the agency took significant actions last year to make it harder and more costly for “malicious actors” to succeed. This includes efforts to take down LockBit, one of the world’s most active ransomware groups, offering up thousands of decryption keys to victims of ransomware and working proactively to prevent losses and prevent losses and minimize victim harm through private sector collaboration and initiatives, according to the report.
Officials also shut down scam call centers, illicit marketplaces, dissolved nefarious “botnets” and put hundreds of other actors behind bars, the report says.
But more help is needed, the agency says. Without the information reported from Americans through the IC3 or local FBI field offices, they cannot “piece together the puzzle of this ever-shifting threat landscape,” the report says. The FBI encourages people to report cyber-enabled crime to law enforcement.