Web crime jumps by a third last year

By Carol Cratty
CNN Senior Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Internet-based rip-offs jumped 33 percent last year over the previous year, according to a report from a complaint center set up to monitor such crimes.
The report said that about 77.4 percent of perpetrators of Internet fraud were men.

The report said that about 77.4 percent of perpetrators of Internet fraud were men.

The total dollar loss from those crimes was $265 million. That's $26 million more than the price tag in 2007, the National Internet Crime Center said. For individual victims, the average amount lost was $931.

"This report illustrates that sophisticated computer fraud schemes continue to flourish as financial data migrates to the Internet," said Shawn Henry, the FBI's assistant director of the Cyber Division.

Americans filed 275,284 reports claiming to be ripped off on the Internet, the highest number reported since the center began keeping statistics in 2000.

The dollar loss has been on a steady increase since 2004, while the number of cases referred to law enforcement has decreased steadily since that same year.

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