Hoosiers are the victims of internet crimes at the highest rate in the state’s history, according to a new report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to the report, Indiana ranks 8th in the country for the number of internet crime victims in 2024.

Over 23,000 people in Indiana were victims of Internet crimes last year, which is more than double the number of any year since the FBI has been tracking the numbers.

“From what we can tell it doesn’t seem like any trend lines are going in a positive direction. It just seems like more of a hockey stick of these things still going through the roof,” Indiana University Professor Scott Shackelford said.

Since 2020 the number of victims has gone up significantly and so has the monetary amount victims have lost.

Hoosiers lost more than $125 million last year alone. Shackelford explained how cyber crooks are doing it.

“Business email compromise, phishing. More recently fueled by things like AI and deepfakes, but still similar basic scams where you’re trying to get folks to fork over – either by clicking on something that they shouldn’t, or telling a voice clone, for example, something that they shouldn’t – their personal information,” he said.

There are a couple of things you can do to protect yourself, “Enabling things like multi-factor authentication. Backing up your personal data on hard drive in your home, but also in the cloud is a great idea in case you are a victim of a ransomware attack,” Shackelford said.

This FBI report could be just the tip of the iceberg for how bad this problem actually is, “Nobody has all the comprehensive data, so folks shouldn’t walk away from this thinking they have a firm handle on the total problem because frankly nobody does,” Shackleford said.

To prevent financial trouble from having your data compromised Shackelford said you can freeze your credit with all three credit bureaus. That way criminals cannot open up any accounts in your names.