Cybercrime losses near $21B: 5 ways to protect your money

Nearly $21 billion. That number jumped out at me when I looked at the FBI's latest cybercrime data. Behind that enormous loss are families who watched savings disappear and people who trusted the wrong investment pitch. Some victims had no clue someone was moving their money until they checked an account.

Americans reported nearly $21 billion in losses to cyber-enabled crime during 2025, up 26% from the year before. Investment fraud caused the biggest financial hit at about $8.65 billion. I recently joined "Fox & Friends Weekend" to talk about those numbers and a bigger problem I see coming. Scammers now have AI tools that can make a fake message, voice or identity far more believable than the clumsy scams many of us learned to recognize years ago. That changes how we need to protect our money.

Here are five practical steps you can take now to put stronger barriers between scammers and your savings.

Americans reported nearly $21 billion in cyber-enabled crime losses in 2025, as scammers increasingly used artificial intelligence to make fraud more convincing. (Hollie Adams/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

AI is helping scammers sound more convincing

For years, one of the standard pieces of scam advice was to look for obvious mistakes. Maybe an email had terrible grammar. Perhaps the caller sounded suspicious. AI can now erase many of those clues.

The FBI says its Internet Crime Complaint Center received 22,364 complaints in 2025 that included AI-related information. Reported losses tied to those complaints reached about $893 million. The FBI also warns that criminals can use AI to create fake social profiles, cloned voices and convincing videos.

That gives scammers another way to build trust before asking for money or personal information. So telling you to "be careful" no longer feels like enough advice to me. I want barriers between a scammer and your money.

5 ways to protect your money from cybercrime

You cannot predict every scam that may come your way. However, you can put safeguards in place that make it harder for a criminal to reach your money.

1) Turn on instant alerts for your financial accounts

Start with your bank and credit cards. Open the official app or website for each financial institution and look for notification settings. Turn on alerts for transactions and transfers. You may also be able to receive warnings about suspicious account activity.

The exact choices vary by bank. However, the goal stays simple. If money moves and you did not authorize it, you want to know quickly. I have talked with victims who discovered fraud long after criminals gained access. A real-time alert gives you a chance to call the financial institution and react much sooner.

2) Strengthen the login protecting your money

Next, check the security settings on your bank, credit card and investment accounts. Use a strong password that you do not reuse elsewhere, which a password manager can help you create and store. Then turn on two-factor or multifactor authentication (2FA) wherever your financial institution offers it.

If the company supports an authenticator app, passkey or another stronger verification method, consider using that option. Texted security codes still add protection, although your phone number can become a target in a SIM swap attack.

Also protect the email account connected to your finances. A criminal who controls your email may be able to reset passwords or intercept account notifications. For a closer look at the different login options, see Are bank text codes enough to protect you?

3) Lock down your phone number

Your phone number has quietly become part of your financial security. In a SIM swap or port-out scam, a criminal tricks a carrier into moving your number to another SIM or device. Once that happens, calls and texted security codes can start going to the scammer.

Contact your carrier or check its account-security settings. Look for a number transfer lock, port-out protection or another feature designed to block unauthorized transfers. If your phone suddenly loses service for no clear reason, pay attention. Contact your carrier from another device, especially if you also notice unusual activity involving your financial accounts.

Investment fraud accounted for about $8.65 billion in reported losses as cybercrime cost Americans nearly $21 billion in 2025. (Bildquelle/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

4) Freeze your credit before a criminal uses it

A credit freeze remains one of the strongest free tools available for preventing new-account fraud. You need to place a freeze separately with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Once active, the freeze restricts access to your credit file and makes it much harder for someone to open a new credit account using your identity.

A freeze does not hurt your credit score. You can also lift it when you legitimately need to apply for credit. One warning: go directly to the official credit bureau websites rather than clicking an ad or unfamiliar search result. Criminals know people search for credit-freeze help too. CyberGuy has step-by-step guidance on how to freeze your credit and clean up your online data at Cyberguy.com

5) Give your retirement accounts more protection

This one worries me because retirement accounts can represent decades of someone's work. We recently covered a case involving a Colgate-Palmolive employee whose entire $751,430 401(k) was allegedly drained after an impostor changed the account's contact information. The case later settled on undisclosed terms.

Log in to your retirement and investment accounts and review their security settings. Make sure your contact information remains correct. Turn on account alerts and multifactor authentication. Then ask your brokerage or retirement-plan provider what protections it offers for withdrawals and transfers. Some providers offer additional verification or other controls that can make unauthorized transfers harder. This deserves the same attention you give your checking account. Maybe more.

Artificial intelligence can help scammers create convincing messages, cloned voices, fake identities and videos designed to gain victims’ trust. (Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Key takeaways

What worries me about the FBI's nearly $21 billion figure goes beyond the size of the number. Scammers have become better at taking advantage of moments when people naturally trust what they see or hear. AI raises the stakes because a familiar voice or polished message can create a false sense of confidence. The FBI's numbers show how much money is already disappearing through cyber-enabled crime. I would rather see you build protections now than depend on spotting one tiny clue in the middle of a convincing scam. Turn on the alerts and secure the accounts holding your money. Then look at the protections surrounding your phone number, credit and retirement savings. Cybercriminals only need one good opportunity. Your job is to make that opportunity much harder to find.