Overview

• The FBI issued a September 19 public service announcement saying threat actors are impersonating the Internet Crime Complaint Center website to steal personal and financial data and facilitate fraud.
• Attackers craft lookalike domains with slight misspellings or different top-level domains, which can capture victims who search for the portal to file complaints.
• The FBI advises typing www.ic3.gov directly into the browser, avoiding sponsored search results, verifying the URL ends in .gov, and steering clear of low‑quality imitations.
• IC3 will never request payment to recover funds or refer victims to paid recovery services, and the center maintains no social media accounts.
• Researchers cited in media reports identified example spoofed domains such as icc3.gov and ic3a.gov, and the FBI asks the public to report impersonation attempts to IC3 or a local FBI field office.