Hardest hit were organizations using Office 365, with incidents costing more than $2 million each.

The operation also resulted in the seizure of nearly $2.4 million and the recovery of about $14 million in fraudulent wire transfers, said the FBI.

Tech-support scams took off during the year, while whaling/business email compromise was the main threat, accounting for losses of more than $675 million.

Researchers have identified a hacking group behind several widescale maritime shipping industry business email compromise (BEC) attacks since June.

Flashpoint warns of a new business email compromise campaign targeting organizations in various industries with the aim of harvesting credentials.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) identified ransomware as one of 2016’s top threats, but a relatively small number of attacks were reported.

Mike Mimoso and Chris Brook discuss the news of the week, including Microsoft’s XP patches, Hidden Cobra, a Nigerian BEC campaign, MacRansom, and more.

A Kaspersky Lab report on Thursday said an especially potent Nigerian Business Email Compromise campaign has stolen sensitive data from over 500 companies in 50 countries.

The FBI says Business Email Compromise scams are growing at astronomical rates, and businesses have lost $5.3 billion since 2013; $346 million in the U.S. alone in the second half of 2016.

Researchers from Dell SecureWorks infiltrated a Nigerian business email spoofing and business email compromise operation, shutting down a number of money mule accounts in the process.