Nearly $240 million in reported losses from Internet crime, up $40 million from last year, according to figures reported to the FBI.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center, a joint venture between the FBI and National White Collar Crime Center, reports that the biggest crime reported was Internet auction fraud. Others crime include fraudulent activity such as non-delivery of purchases and credit/debit card fraud, and non-fraudulent activity such as computer intrusions, spam/unsolicited e-mail, and child pornography. In an effort to raise public awareness, the report also describes the characteristics of commonly reported scams such as those involving the purchase or sale of pets, check scams, e-mail spam, and online dating fraud.

There are two worrying parts to these figures.

First, and the most obvious, is that there would be many more instances that have gone unreported which means the real figure could be a lot more than $240 million. Secondly, authorities seem to be fighting a losing battle against Internet crime because the perpetrators are a lot better organized. In February, I looked at the growth of the cyber-crime service economy.

This problem will not go away. If anything, it will get a lot worse.