Cyber crime of all stripes cost victims globally more than $16 billion dollars last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a report released on Wednesday.

The figure were collated by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, which has become a clearinghouse for reports of digital fraud and hacking, and drew on nearly 860,000 complaints, the bureau said.

The losses – a one-third increase over 2023 – were largely driven by low tech scams, such as would-be investors swindled out of money online, or company employees tricked by deceptive emails into wiring large sums to criminals’ bank accounts.

Tech support and romance scams also caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, the bureau said.

Losses from cyber crime are notoriously hard to calculate; however, last year the average loss was $19,372.

Those 60 and older reported the most complaints.Those aged 50-59 and 40-49 rounded out the top three for most reported complaints.

The report also outlined the top 10 states by number of complaints.

The FBI’s figures are among the most comprehensive, but the bureau acknowledged that its calculations were incomplete, particularly with regard to ransomware, a particularly destructive breed of software used by hackers to extort organizations into making ransom payments in return for their data.

While the complaints gathered by the FBI came from around the world, the overwhelming majority were filed in the U.S.

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)