Cybercrime offenses have risen by 23%, according to the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS). The total number of incidents comes in at 26,215, and includes cybercrimes affecting both individuals and businesses.
This count is arrived at from the number of incidents reported to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) by Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud and cybercrime reporting centre, up to the year ending March 2020.
The two areas that have seen the largest year-on-year increase is “Hacking – social media and email”, which has increased 55% to 20,125, and “computer viruses/malware”, which has increased 61% to 6745. However, as InfoSecurity has highlighted, these numbers aren't as telling as we'd hope.
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Action Fraud’s online reporting service is not a flawless procedure, with its internal case review processes often miscategorising fraud as computer misuse incidents. Since October 2018, there has been a focus on attempting to correct these mis-categorisations. However, there's still some way to go.
Even the ONS recommends that we look elsewhere for a more accurate representation of cybercrime’s prevalence within the UK, in particular the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). According to these numbers, in the year ending March 2020, there were around 900,000 computer misuse incidents reported by individuals alone.
Though more accurate than the Action Fraud numbers, there are still many respected voices within the cybersecurity community noting the shortfall of the CSEW number, too. George Glass of Redscan Cyber Security had this to say about the numbers: "Despite huge reported increases in hacking and malware incidents, I still think this latest Crime in England and Wales report paints an inaccurate picture of computer misuse and online fraud cases in the UK."
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The lack of clarity and inability to accurately report on cybercrime demonstrates its inherent difficulty. This situation is a prime example of the grey lines and legal uncertainties that remain around the ever-changing virtual world of cybercrime, hacking, viruses, and malware.
Whatever the numbers are, we all know the importance of being protected online. To help you find the very best protection, we've brought together the best internet security packages available in 2020. But this is only the first step - you'll also want to make sure you're subscribed to one of the five best VPNs.