Americans lost roughly $1.3 billion in 2023 to scammers pretending to be from the government or tech support, according to new FBI data.

Why it matters: Record-breaking profits motivate fraudsters to double down on their schemes.

How it works: Scammers pretend to be a government official, tech support agent or customer service representative to trick people into sending money or other sensitive information their way.

• These impersonators typically call with fake stories that would motivate someone to share their private identifiable details with them.
• For example, a scammer might call to say someone will lose their Medicare benefits if they don't pay a new fee. Or they might claim there's a virus on their computer that requires the victim to buy a special tool.

By the numbers: U.S. adults' losses from tech support and government impersonation scams have grown more than sevenfold since 2019, according to the FBI's annual internet crime report, released last week.

• In 2019, the FBI received 27,506 complaints of government and tech support impersonation scams, resulting in $178.3 million in losses.
• By 2023, those losses had topped $1.3 billion from 51,750 reports.

Zoom in: Tech support scams — where a fraudster attempts to make victims believe they have a virus on their computer — have skyrocketed over the last five years.

• Between 2019 and 2023, the number of tech support impersonation complaints nearly tripled, growing from 13,633 to 37,560.
• Older people, or those over 60, accounted for more than half of losses to tech support scams in 2023, per the FBI report.

Yes, but: These numbers are based only on the cases that victims reported to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center.

• Many victims won't call the police after a scam or cyberattack due to shame over falling for a ruse or fear of retaliation.

The big picture: Impersonation scams have become easier due both to the growing availability of generative AI tools and the popularity of remote work.

• Scammers can now replicate someone's voice with as little as a three-second clip, according to McAfee.
• Loneliness and isolation have made people more susceptible to calls from scammers.

Between the lines: Impersonation scams have evolved from cold-calling telemarketing scams to online operations to lure people in.

• Many tech support scams now start as a web pop-up advertisement, according to Sophos and the Federal Trade Commission.

The intrigue: People of all ages are susceptible to scams — not just the elderly.

• Only 40% of people who fell for tech support scams reported to be over 60, according to the FBI.
• Even New York Magazine's personal finance columnist fell for a customer support scam where she put $50,000 into a shoebox and handed it off to someone in an unmarked vehicle.

The bottom line: Be on high alert for imposters.

• The government will never call, email, text or send a social media message to ask for money, the FTC says.
• Be wary of anyone who calls randomly with a supposedly urgent financial need — especially if they ask you to buy a gift card or to transfer cryptocurrencies.

The intelligence community's annual global threats report is a stark reminder of what the fast-moving TikTok debate is actually about: China's advancing cyber prowess.

Why it matters: TikTok is activating a group of lobbyists and creators this week to convince lawmakers to vote against a bill aimed at forcing Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest its ownership in the video-sharing platform.

• Meanwhile, in recent months, U.S. officials have started declassifying an unprecedented amount of information about China's hacking and spying operations.

Driving the news: Intelligence officials testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday about this year's annual worldwide threat assessment.

• The assessment, which came out alongside the hearing, provides the clearest look at how the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, the CIA and other agencies assess threats from nation-state adversaries — including China.

The big picture: Lawmakers' and regulators' concerns about TikTok have always stemmed from long-running fears about Beijing spying on the U.S. and influencing American opinion.

• "The problem is not TikTok, it is the control by China," Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said during Monday's Senate hearing.

Zoom in: This year's worldwide threats assessment warned that China remains the "most active and persistent cyber threat to the U.S. government."

• The intelligence community believes that if there is a major conflict between the U.S. and China — such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan — Beijing would pursue cyberattacks against American infrastructure and military assets.
• "Such a strike would be designed to deter U.S. military action by impeding U.S. decision-making, inducing societal panic, and interfering with the deployment of U.S. forces," the report said.

The intelligence report also noted that the Chinese government created TikTok accounts to influence the 2022 U.S. midterm vote.

• FBI director Christopher Wray told lawmakers Monday that TikTok's "parent company is, for all intents and purposes, beholden to the CCP."

The other side: China has denied that it interferes with U.S. elections.

• TikTok had been working with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to mitigate national security concerns tied to ByteDance's ownership.
• However, CFIUS and TikTok have not met in months, according to Axios Pro: Tech Policy reporter Ashley Gold.

What we're watching: Most of TikTok's offensive operations have focused on reminding lawmakers how much their constituents — especially young people — love the platform.

• But most lawmakers will likely be looking to hear a rationale this week that instead addresses the growing tensions between the U.S. and China.

Microsoft said Friday the Russian nation-state hackers who breached some of its executives' emails late last year are continuing to target its networks and go after its source code.

Why it matters: Microsoft currently has the highest market cap of any company in the world, and the continuing attacks could give Russian spies critical information about its customers, corporate secrets and ongoing projects.

Catch up quick: In January, the company said that Midnight Blizzard had hacked "a very small percentage" of email accounts in the fall belonging to the company's senior leaders and members of the cybersecurity and legal teams.

• Midnight Blizzard, which Microsoft has also called Nobelium, is the same group that broke into IT vendor SolarWinds in 2020, resulting in a breach of roughly 100 companies and federal agencies.
• In this case, Midnight Blizzard successfully used a simple password-spraying technique, in which an adversary attempts to use the same password across multiple accounts to see if it works.

Zoom in: Microsoft said in an SEC filing Friday that it now believes the hackers are using information stolen during the breach to "gain, or attempt to gain, unauthorized access" to some of the company's source code repositories and other internal systems.

• Microsoft pointed Axios to a blog post with the same language when asked to clarify whether the hackers had actually stolen any source code — or if they are just making attempts.
• Midnight Blizzard appears to be using corporate secrets collected from emails to further infiltrate the company's networks, the company added in the blog.
• Password-spraying attacks against Microsoft also increased "10-fold" in February compared with the "already large volume" seen in January, the company said.
• The blog post said Microsoft has found no evidence that customer-facing systems have been compromised.

The big picture: The ongoing threat is just the latest cybersecurity incident that's targeted Microsoft in recent years.

• In July, Microsoft said China-based hackers had targeted Exchange email accounts belonging to at least 25 organizations. These included accounts belonging to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and officials at the State Department.
• In 2021, China-linked hackers exploited a flaw in Microsoft's Exchange Server to target thousands of victims globally.

@ D.C.

👀 Hackers broke into two systems at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency using critical flaws in Ivanti's VPN products. (The Record)

🗳️ State election workers are now concerned about AI-generated deepfakes that replicate their likenesses. (Politico)

@ Industry

📉 Health care providers are losing as much as $1 billion a day due to the ongoing Change Healthcare ransomware attack. (Axios)

🏡 Airbnb is banning hosts from having security cameras inside their rental properties and requiring them to disclose any outdoor recording tech. (Wired)

🚗 Automakers have started discreetly collecting information about drivers' habits from their internet-connected vehicles and sharing it with insurance companies. (New York Times)

@ Hackers and hacks

⚠️ Roughly 150,000 systems could be vulnerable to a recently discovered critical flaw in Fortinet's FortiOS and FortiProxy secure web gateway systems. (BleepingComputer)

🏥 Millions of patients' sensitive medical information is in jeopardy as Change Healthcare responds to the ongoing ransomware attack. (TechCrunch)

Even cybersecurity vendors are getting in on the Kate Middleton conspiracy discourse.