Figures released by the Office of National Statistics have shown that there fraud was the most common form of crime in England in Wales in 2015.The report finds the majority of fraud involved unauthorised access to information, data and banking information, through cyber hacking and online threats.
Adults aged 16 and over experienced an estimated 3.8 million incidents of fraud, with just over half of these (51%; 1.9 million incidents) being cyber-related. It also highlights that there were 600,000 reported cases of unauthorised access to information through hacking during the period.
Zain Javed, Technical Director at Mitigate Cyber Security said:
“These statistics are in line with our own independent research we are conducting into cybercrime in the UK today.
"The most common form of attack comes in the form of ‘Phishing’, which is the fraudulent attempt to steal personal or sensitive information by masquerading as a well-known or trusted contact, most often via email.
“It is crucial for employers and employees to be aware of all the risks. You need to be able to identify these type of emails, as well as know what to do if a staff member has inadvertently already engaged with an attacker”.
Many firms are engaging their employees in cyber awareness policy training, as a way of increasing vigilence and resilience in the face of cyber threats and fraud.
Cyber Essentials is the first step to ensuring that your firm is mitigating its risk from cybercrime attacks. The Cyber Essentials Scheme was launched in 2013, and you can get more information here: https://www.xyonecybersecurity.co.uk/cyber-essentials
