Cybercrime on the Rise: U.S. States with the Most Phishing Criminals [Study]

Phishing schemes are among the most common types of cybercrime on the internet today, and thanks to the power of smartphones, they’re getting more and more sophisticated. Gone are the days of phishing attempts only lurking in email inboxes: between phishing texts, social media messages, and phone calls, phishing scams can come from anywhere you’re contactable.

While phishing is widespread, the team at All About Cookies was curious to know if there are any cities and states where phishermen are more likely to cast their nets. To determine phishing hotspots, we studied regional data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center to uncover the number of victims and amount of money lost in all the reported cases within the past year.

Key findings

• Florida has the highest concentration of phishing attempts of any state in the U.S.
• Nationwide, phishing attempts fell in all states except Florida between 2022 and 2023.
• Victims across the U.S. lost an average of $5,807 in 2023, an increase of 136% from the year before ($2,458).
• Kansas saw the largest impact, with the amount victims lost increasing 1,446% from 2022 to 2023.
• Despite achieving the largest decrease in phishing reports, Oklahoma still saw the cost to phishing victims increase 62% in the last year.

Phishing scam attempts are on the decline, but they’re costing Americans more than ever

When it comes to the current state of phishing in America, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that the number of victims declined sharply last year, but unfortunately scammers stole more money than ever before.

From 2022 to 2023 (the most recent data from the FBI), the per capita percentage of the population that fell victim to phishing scams decreased in every single state except one — Florida, which rose by a whopping 273% year-over-year. The only other state where the phishing victim rate even came close to rising was Iowa, where it fell by “only” 6%. All told, the number of people who reported falling victim to phishing scams fell by 31% across the country.

Even with such a large drop in the number of people getting scammed by phishers, the bad guys still got away with more money, swindling their victims out of nearly $30 million more in 2023 than they took in 2022. That’s a 62% increase from one year to the next, which seems even more significant given the reduction in the number of total phishing victims.

States where phishing losses have increased the most

Across the entire country, phishing victims lost $2,458 on average in 2022, while in 2023 that number jumped to $5,807, an increase of 136%. The amount of money victims lost per case increased in 22 different states, including 13 where the amount lost per victim more than doubled.

Kansas leads the way here, as phishing victims in the Jayhawk state lost just $123 on average in 2022 before average losses rose to $1,904 in 2023, an increase of over 1,400%. Alaska is the only other state where average losses increased at least tenfold, going up 1,188% from $928 in 2022 to $11,946 in 2023.

Five other states saw average losses increase by at least 250% year-over-year, including Iowa and Maine, the only remaining states where the amount of money phishing victims lost increased by more than 500%.

Montana saw phishing victims lose the most money on average in 2023, reporting that they were scammed out of $24,147 on average, a 153% increase over their 2023 average of $9,548.

States with the most phishing criminals per capita

While it seems clear that scammers are refining their phishing techniques to allow them to get more money out of fewer victims, law enforcement is also working hard to refine their approach to catching these criminals.

Those efforts have been more successful in certain states than others, with Florida handily leading the way. In 2022, authorities in the Sunshine State caught 267 scammers, while in 2023 they increased that number by 562%, putting 1,767 phishers behind bars. That number is the highest number of total scammers caught by any state in 2023, and more than triple the amount of scammers that the top state caught in 2022 (California, 552 criminals caught).

Two other states increased their per capita scammer arrest rate by at least 25%, as New Mexico increased by 45% while Connecticut increased their rate by 32%. Montana (14%), Vermont (13%), Mississippi (9%), and Wisconsin (9%) are the only other states where phishers were caught at a higher rate in 2023 than the year before, while the rate fell by at least 7% in every other state in the country.

Bottom line

One click or text can lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars worth of damages. This doesn’t even include the amount of time spent trying to recover your lost and compromised accounts. While avoiding phishing attempts entirely may be unrealistic, there are still ways to stay safe.

• Use an identity theft protection service. Rest easy with millions of dollars in ID theft insurance and comprehensive account monitoring from a top ID theft protection service.
• Learn how to protect yourself. Check out our identity theft protection guide to get started on your journey to a safer online presence.
• Only share your phone number with trusted contacts. Phishermen can lure you in with seemingly legitimate texts and phone calls. There are certain risks when giving out your cell phone number to anyone other than trusted contacts. Try not to accept texts and calls from unfamiliar numbers as well.

Methodology

All About Cookies examined data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reports for 2022 and 2023 to find the reported number of phishing complaints, the total amount of money lost by phishing victims, the number of criminals arrested for phishing, and the total amount of money that captured criminals stole via phishing in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

Using that data we calculated year-over-year change to determine the states with the largest increases and decreases across each statistic in 2023.