- According to a 2018 Gallup Poll, Americans are more likely to be a victim of a cyber crime than any of the other top eight forms of criminal activity. People can fall victim in countless ways, and the information stolen leads to billions of dollars in losses each year. According to the FBI, it's happening more often. We recently got inside into how the agency investigates cyber crimes and emerging trends from Special Agent, Michael Foster. How would you describe cyber crime? - Cyber crime is actually any crime that is facilitated by the use of the internet. So it could be actually from an email that comes through or just normal transactions that happen on the internet. Credit card processing happens. We also sign up for bank accounts, even our local library happens on line, so any data or information that can be stolen or leaked through internet usage is considered a cyber crime. - I saw a report through your website that says very costly as well. 2.7 billion dollars in just one year alone. Is it on an upward tick? - The dollar amount seems to be going up because of the financial transactions that seem to be targeted, right? We're seeing a lot more business email compromise. That happens, which are typically targeting now businesses, not just general persons like you or me. So the financial dollar amounts between buying a home right, seem to be going up. So yes. - Who seems to be the target? - Everyone. Again, regardless of age, everyone. So the elderly in Arizona, typically right now, it's 2018, make up the largest growing population effected by cyber crime. They're also the largest group affected by gross loss. - If you're a victim, this could be devastating, correct? - It can be, but there are resources out there. If it's a financial loss, we encourage you to call your financial institution first. The faster you act with your financial institution, the faster and the better chances you have of getting some money back. It's not guaranteed, but we encourage you to contact your financial institution first, and then local, state, or federal law enforcement officers. - How often are you getting reports from people who say I think I may have been a victim. - We get them all the time, and we encourage them to actually report in person or anonymously, but we also encourage everyone who feels they may have been a victim to report that to ic3.gov. We can't fight crime unless we know about it. So we encourage everyone, whether you believe you're a victim or you think you're a victim of a crime, to please report that to ic3.gov. So you want to note again, dates, times, and transactions. Any sort of identifying information which would be a phone number, an email address, whether the person has an accent or not if there was a phone call, misspellings. Keep a copy of those emails that you have 'em, right? All that sort of identifying information that you believe if you would say a police officer asked you, can you identify this person? Describe them for me. Those types of attributes. Again online, they just happen to be more numbers-based. - What are some of the top cases that you tend to see here in the state of Arizona? - The top 10 are data breeches, like we just previously talked about, and then we have ex6tortion is actually on the rise as well. Extortion typically happens through an email stating that they'll either release some photos or your personal data unless they're paid in sort of bit coin or virtual currency, or purchases through gift cards which you would then go out and buy. That is on the rise as well, and then you have nonpayment of services or nondelivery. So in other words, me as the scammer would say, I'm gonna send you something, but you have to pay me first, right? Or vice versa. - It may be hard to hear, but much of this is common sense. - It is sort of common sense, but we talked about that urgency before. When urgency happens, some of our common sense goes down. We just need people to take a deep breath, taking that extra 30 seconds may save you thousands of dollars. - Okay, Michael Foster from the FBI, thank you.