The FBI does not maintain an official Internet Crime Complaint Center presence on any social media platform, the agency has warned in a newly updated public service alert, following the identification of ongoing threats that seek to “revictimize those who have already lost money to scams.”

Brand impersonation is nothing new, with threat actors continuing to evolve their attacks against users of legitimate services such as LastPass and Amazon in order to gain access to accounts, data or money. Social media platforms such as X are not immune to such attacks, but now users of these services have been warned to be on alert for scammers impersonating the FBI itself.

FBI Updates Existing Fake Feds Warning With New Alert As Latest Tactics Revealed

If the whole fake Feds thing sounds familiar, that might be because you’ve read about the attack strategy before. Indeed, I reported on hackers posing as Feds last year, when the FBI originally issued an alert regarding the threat. The new warning, alert number: I-072026-PSA , was published on July 20 and is an update to Alert Number I-04182025-PSA. “This PSA contains updated information,” the FBI said, with two specific schemes described to highlight the modus operandi of the attackers and their usage of social media platforms.

It should come as no great surprise, but is nonetheless still concerning, that the threat actors are employing AI to create the bait for these attacks alongside the creation of sites that clone official Internet Crime Complaint Center resources. These tactics are deployed, the FBI alert stated, to “give victims a false sense of safety and security, while the actors impersonate or falsely affiliate themselves with government personnel or entities.”

While pretty much all of the cases that have reached the FBI have involved scammers impersonating Federal agents or agencies to deploy a ruse claiming to have recovered funds lost by victims, or offering assistance in the recovery of the same, from victims of cybercrime, two distinct attack schemes have been identified.

The first involves fraudulent FBI profiles and fake pages on social media sites, luring victims to the cloned IC3 sites, but with a twist. “After the victim of a scam begins to realize they are being defrauded,” the FBI explained, “the victim informs the scammers they will report them to the FBI and file an IC3 report.” This is when the revictimization occurs, with another fake Fed contacting them on Facebook Messenger. The impersonator “sends a link to update the submitted IC3 report,” which can include malicious code or further deception to gather personal data.

The second uses AI-generated videos on social media platforms that promote what appears to be the FBI IC3 site for filing a scam complaint. Users who visit that site are then given a reference number after submitting what they believe is a real report, and are told that an agent will contact them regarding the matter. You can guess the rest.

“Any social media profiles or pages claiming to represent IC3 or offering to recover lost money are fraudulent and are actively attempting to steal your personal or financial information,” the FBI said, adding that “IC3 will never directly communicate with individuals via phone, email, social media, phone apps, online chat, or public forums.” If you need to file a complaint, always type www.ic3.gov directly into the address bar located at the top of your Internet browser, rather than using a search engine, the FBI concluded.