Internet-based crime has dramatically increased by 33% last year according to The Internet Crime Complaint Center.

IC3 released a report today with rather dramatic and surprising results – Cybercrime is on the rise following two straight years of decline. The graph below explains the full situation:

Source: IC3

As we  can see by the bar chart above, complaints have been steadily decreasing since 2005. That is until the economic crisis hit and people started becoming desperate. In 2008, the number of reported cases of internet-based crime rose from 206,884 complaints to over 275,000. That’s a massive and unexpected jump.

Although complaints have suddenly increased, damage hasn’t:

Source: IC3

The dollar-loss damage by these crimes has actually been increasing steadily since 2005, annually jumping to a larger sum than the year before.

This begs the question: Has cybercrime really increased at such a rapid pace since 2007? Or is it simply the fact that users were unaware they were being scammed and have only taken up reporting these fraudulent crimes because money is difficult to come by now?