Cybercrime - UK Facts
The Facts
- You are more likely to fall victim to cybercrime than any other crime in the UK.
- Around 17 million (reported) UK incidents of cybercrime and around £130 billon stolen.
- Bank and credit card fraud accounts for 75% of all offences.
- 67% of cybercrime relate to malware or viruses the remaining 33% relates to unauthorised access of personal information.
If there were 17 million reported incidents of cybercrime, that’s a one in four chance of being a victim.
The above statistics do not include business cybercrime, such as hacking or DDOS which further impact on the statistics.
You are ten times more likely to be the victim of cybercrime than someone physically stealing from you and thirty-five times more likely to be affected by cybercrime than physically robbed or attacked.
UK Cybercrime Laws
Cybercrime is a crime and it is illegal. Within the UK we have strict laws regarding computer crimes in comparison to other countries. Any crime that involves fraud is covered by the existing UK fraud legislation, most recently by the Fraud Act of 2006. Additionally, cybercrime is additionally covered by the Computer Misuse Act of 1990.
The sad truth of the matter is that cybercrime and cybercriminals are very rarely caught and even more rarely are prosecuted. Less than 1% of computer hacking offences resulted in prosecution in 2019, and of the 17,600 offences recorded in the UK, just 57 were able to be tried under the Computer Misuse Act.
The Reality
- Less than 5% of business in the UK purchase Cyber, Data and Crime Insurance.
- The average cyber claim costs SMEs between £60,000 to over £155,000. For larger businesses, this increases to between £600,000 to £1.15M.
- You have a one in four chance of being a victim of cybercrime.
You have an intruder alarm, fire alarm and perhaps sprinklers installed to protect your business, yet you still insure for theft and fire.
The firewall, antivirus software, 2FA, cloud based IT will not stop you from being a victim of cybercrime, yet you don’t insure this risk – crazy
What Are The Most Frequent Kind of Cybercrime?
- Phishing – when you receive an email that purports to be from a bank, your employer, or your manager, asking for your passwords or personal information.
- File Hijacking – where a hacker accesses your computer and files, locking you out of them. A ransom is then demanded to return your files, which are normally corrupted.
- Webcam Managing – where you webcam is taken over, so they may watch your keyboard, learning passwords or record a video of you so you can be blackmailed with it or simply just to learn personal information about you.
- Screenshot Management – this is where a hacker takes screenshots of your display, obtaining personal information, passwords, or material to blackmail you with.
- Keylogging – recording of keystrokes to gain access to passwords and personal information.
- Ad Clicking – where you’re encouraged to click on a link by email or website, which activates malware or simply asks for personal information.
- Hacking – where access is gained to a business’ files or servers and obtains information.
- DDOS Attacks – when business files or servers are accessed, and these are changed so services or webpages can’t be accessed.
