By Ethan Faverino |
A new report reveals a rise in financial cybercrime across the United States, with Arizona ranking 47th out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., as one of the riskiest states.
Based on the FBI’s 2024 Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) annual report, the findings highlight a national rise in crime frequency and financial impact. Arizona is among the states that faced significant challenges due to high victim counts, staggering losses, and inadequate legislative protections.
Arizona reported 2,239 victims per million residents in 2024, which was well above the national average, totaling $337 million in financial losses.
The state experienced a 61.02% increase in victim counts and a 51.84% rise in losses from 2022 to 2024. These losses are driven by an increase in high volume scams such as phishing, tech support fraud, and identity theft.
With a weighted score of 59.305 and only 10 cybersecurity-related laws, Arizona’s legislation has not kept up with the growing scale of cybersecurity threats.
Nationwide, financial cybercrime losses more than doubled from 2022 to 2024 reaching billions in reported damages. The report mentions that most states, including Arizona, saw double-digit increases in either victim counts or monetary losses.
Nationally, cyber security intrusions rose 613% from 2013 to 2023. In 2023 alone, there were 7.6 trillion hacking attempts, and 6.06 billion malware attacks recorded.
Americans lost $25.4 billion to phone phishing scams last year, and ransomware attempts occur nearly 20 times per second.
Cybercriminals are targeting multiple sectors, with the financial industry hit by 95.7% of successful attacks in 2023, costing $5.90 million per data breach.
The healthcare sector faced the highest breach costs at $10.93 million, while 43% of cyberattacks target small businesses.
The retail sector lost $2.9 million per breach, and the banking industry’s cybersecurity market is projected to grow from $74.3 billion in 2022 to $282 billion by 2032.
These trends show the broad economic toll, with the average global data breach costing $4.88 million in 2023.
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
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