The FBI received more than 2,600 complaints about ransomware last year, according to a new report.
Published yesterday, the annual review of cybersecurity threats from the law enforcement agency's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) outlined a range of statistics, including the number of submissions it received regarding ransomware.
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts an infected computer's data, demanding a payment – usually in bitcoin – in return for the information being unlocked.
According to the IC3's report, 2,673 complaints were submitted, with losses of over $2.4m reported during that period. The number represents a small fraction of the 298,728 cybercrime-related complaints that IC3 said it received overall in 2016. All told, losses in 2016 connected to these activities constituted a reported $1.3bn.
The IC3 disclosure comes on the heels of a global ransomware attack, dubbed WannaCry, that impacted hundreds of thousands of computers owned by a host of organizations, including the UK's National Health Service.
The impact of that spread is still being felt, according to recent reports.
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Reuters said yesterday that Japanese automaker Honda had to temporarily close one of its manufacturing plants because WannaCry was discovered on one of its networks.
FBI image via Shutterstock