Overview

• An FBI public service announcement on September 19 says threat actors are cloning the Internet Crime Complaint Center site to harvest names, addresses, contact details and banking information.
• The agency advises typing www.ic3.gov into the browser, avoiding sponsored search results, checking that the URL ends in .gov, and steering clear of links with suspicious or low‑quality elements.
• Officials stress that IC3 never charges fees to recover funds, does not refer victims to paid recovery services, and maintains no social media presence.
• Independent reporting has surfaced look‑alike domains mimicking IC3, including icc3.gov and ic3a.gov (cited by Bleeping Computer) and, in a separate report highlighted by Forbes, ic3-gov.com and ic3gov.org.
• The FBI asks the public to report impersonation attempts to IC3 or local FBI field offices, noting this warning follows an April alert after more than 100 reports of IC3 impersonation scams.