(The Center Square) – The FBI Internet Crime Report for 2025 ranks Illinois fifth in the U.S. for cyber crime complaints and eighth in overall losses.
The report released on Monday said the state’s cyber crime losses totaled $535 million in 2025, up from $479 million in 2024.
Carrie Crot is a supervisory special agent in the FBI’s Chicago office.
“Illinois being in the top 10 just due to the population and, of course, the cybersecurity hygiene of business owners, government agencies, no matter what your title or your organization may be, everybody’s vulnerable to a cyber incident,” Crot told The Center Square.
Illinois had 32,977 cyber crime complaints in 2025.
Nationally, the report said cyber-enabled crimes defrauded Americans out of nearly $21 billion last year, up from $16.6 billion in 2024.
Crot said cyber-related investment fraud can involve initial public offerings, non-delivery or rerouting of money for purchases, and more.
“If you’re buying a house and you’re told to send the escrow money to a certain account, cyber actors have found a way to insert themselves into that conversation and redirect that money,” Crot said, adding that many of the crimes start with phishing.
Crot said the FBI wears the hats of both law enforcement and national security.
“We use every tool in the toolbox that’s available to us to impose costs and consequences to these actors to prevent them from victimizing another victim,” Crot said.
Crot said the agency implemented Operation Winter Shield with 10 steps to prevent cyber crime.
“These 10 concrete actions can be applied at home, at a small business, a medium-sized business, an organization, a government agency, just to increase our cyber resiliency against these cyber actors,” Crot said.
FBI officials told The Center Square that Operation Winter Shield is primarily a social media and public awareness campaign with minimal taxpayer expense.
