Unleashed by Artificial Intelligence, Internet Crime is on the Rise
Welcome to the September 2026 edition of our newsletter! In this issue, we’ll examine how “Internet crime” – from investment frauds to extortion attempts – surged in 2025, and what your company can do to defend against it.
New Types of Criminal Schemes Target Businesses as Old Standbys Get More Complex
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation recently released its 2025 Internet Crime Report highlighting trends in online criminal activity. Not surprisingly, cryptocurrencies were part of a number of frauds, either as part of a bogus investment vehicle, and also through crypto “kiosks” as the payment part of phony tech support or other scams.
While many of those scams targeted individuals, often older adults, businesses have also been targeted on a widespread basis. Phishing and malware deployment via business email compromise – where fraudsters use social media and other publicly available sources to mimic phrasing and otherwise make a fake email seem legitimate – is on the rise, often targeting various ranks of employees at large companies. “Costly tactics used by scammers also include compromised corporate e-mails, tech support fraud, and personal data breaches,” the FBI said in a statement about the report. “For the first time in its nearly 25-year history, the IC3 report features a section on artificial intelligence, which accounts for 22,364 complaints, costing Americans nearly $893 million. Scammers rely on pressure techniques to defraud Americans while deploying fake social profiles, voice clones, identification documents, and believable videos depicting public figures or loved ones.”
What can your company do to defend itself? While advanced forensics are likely required to track down who is behind spoofed emails – and will likely require the assistance of the FBI and other law enforcement – if actual damages are sustained via a scheme, a certified fraud examiner can assist in asset tracing and recovery, mapping out how available clues about where the proceeds of a scheme went can help identify the perpetrators, and possibly their motives as well. By developing profiles from public records and the tracing of internal company information, you can understand a criminal’s opportunity, motive and means to commit a fraud.
The landscape of digital fraud is evolving as rapidly as the artificial intelligence tools used to both conduct fraudulent schemes and to combat them. Traditional fraud examination and due diligence techniques can complement digital forensics to act as a countermeasure if your company is attacked by cyber-criminals.