Many Americans own computers, and most couldn’t imagine being without one. As of 2009 around 365 million people worldwide own a computer, and because of social media, time spent online has tremendously increased. According to the Internet Crime Trends in a report released in February 2011, non-delivery of payment or merchandise, scams impersonating the FBI. and Identity theft were the top three most common complaints made to the joint FBI/National White Collar Crime Center’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) last year-according to its just-released 2010 Internet Crime Report. The report also includes a state-by-state breakdown of complaints.
In May 2010, the IC3 marked its 10th anniversary, and by November, it had received its two millionth complaints since opening for business.
Last year, the IC3 received more than 300,000 complaints, averaging just over 25,000 a month. About 170,000 complaints that met specific investigative criteria—such as certain financial thresholds—were referred to the appropriate local, state, or federal law enforcement agencies. But even the complaints not referred to law enforcement, including those where no financial losses had occurred, were valuable pieces of information analyzed and used for intelligence reports and to help identify emerging fraud trends.
So even if you think an Internet scammer was targeting you and you didn’t fall for it, file a complaint with the IC3. Whether or not it’s referred to law enforcement, your information is vital in helping the IC3 paint a fuller picture of Internet crime.

Additional highlights from the report:
• Most victims filing complaints were from the U.S., male, between 40 and 59 years old, and residents of California, Florida, Texas, or New York. Most international complainants were from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, or India.
• In cases where perpetrator information was available, nearly 75 percent were men and more than half resided in California, Florida, New York, Texas, the District of Columbia, or Washington State. The highest numbers of perpetrators outside this country were from the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and Canada.
• After non-delivery of payment/merchandise, scams impersonating the FBI, and identity theft, rounding out the top 10 crime types were: computer crimes, miscellaneous fraud, advance fee fraud, spam, auction fraud, credit card fraud, and overpayment fraud.
The report also contained information on some of the alerts sent out by the IC3 during 2010 in response to new scams or to an increase in established scams, including those involving:
• Telephone calls claiming victims are delinquent on payday loans.
• Online apartment and house rental and real estate scams used to swindle consumers out of thousands of dollars.
• Denial-of-service attacks on cell phones and landlines used as a ruse to access victims’ bank accounts.
• Fake e-mails seeking donations to disaster relief efforts after last year’s earthquake in Haiti.

Ways to Protect Your Computer

The same advice parents might deliver to young drivers on their first solo journey applies to everyone who wants to navigate safely online. A special agent in our Cyber Division offered the following:

- “Don’t drive in bad neighborhoods.”
- “If you don’t lock your car, it’s vulnerable; if you don’t secure your computer, it’s
vulnerable”
- “Reduce your vulnerability, and you reduce the threat.”

Below are some key steps to protecting your computer from intrusion:

- Keep Your Firewall Turned On: A firewall helps protect your computer from hackers who might try to gain access to crash it, delete information, or even steal passwords or other sensitive information. Software firewalls are widely recommended for single computers. The software is prepackaged on some operating systems or can be purchased for individual computers. For multiple networked computers, hardware routers typically provide firewall protection.

- Install or Update Your Antivirus Software: Antivirus software is designed to prevent malicious software programs from embedding on your computer. If it detects malicious code, like a virus or a worm, it works to disarm or remove it. Viruses can infect computers without users’ knowledge. Most types of antivirus software can be set up to update automatically.

- Install or Update Your Anti-spyware Technology: Spyware is just what it sounds like—software that is surreptitiously installed on your computer to let others peer into your activities on the computer. Some spyware collects information about you without your consent or produces unwanted pop-up ads on your web browser. Some operating systems offer free spyware protection, and inexpensive software is readily available for download on the Internet or at your local computer store. Be wary of ads on the Internet offering downloadable anti-spyware—in some cases these products may be fake and may actually contain spyware or other malicious code. It’s like buying groceries—shop where you trust.

- Keep Your Operating System Up to Date: Computer operating systems are periodically updated to stay in tune with technology requirements and to fix security holes. Be sure to install the updates to ensure your computer has the latest protection.

- Be Careful What You Download: Carelessly downloading e-mail attachments can circumvent even the most vigilant anti-virus software. Never open an e-mail attachment from someone you don’t know, and be wary of forwarded attachments from people you do know. They may have unwittingly advanced malicious code.

- Turn Off Your Computer: With the growth of high-speed Internet connections, many opt to leave their computers on and ready for action. The downside is that being “always on” renders computers more susceptible. Beyond firewall protection, which is designed to fend off unwanted attacks, turning the computer off effectively severs an attacker’s connection—be it spyware or a bot-net that employs your computer’s resources to reach out to other unwitting users.

For more information on Internet schemes and how to protect yourself online, see the following areas:

- FBI Cyber Crimes Stories
- New E-Scams and Warnings
- Bot-nets and Hackers and Spam (Oh My!)
- FBI Cyber Investigations
- File an Internet Crime Complaint

Over the past few years, the IC3 has enhanced the way it processes, analyzes, and refers victim complaints to law enforcement. Technology has automated the search process, so IC3 analysts as well as local, state, and federal analysts and investigators can look for similar complaints to build cases. Technology also allows law enforcement users who may be working on the same or similar cases to communicate and share information.

Because there are so many variations of Internet scams out there, we can’t possibly warn against every single one. But we do recommend this: practice good security—make sure your computer is outfitted with the latest security software, protect your personal identification information, and be highly suspicious if someone offers you an online deal that’s too good to be true.