Cybercrime commited 'every 10 seconds'

by liamssoft | September 6, 2007 at 03:24 am

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The best form of defence is attack as the cyber criminals flood the UK knowing that it is very unlikely to be reported and highly likely to make a fortune relatively easy. In April 2007, in a widely criticised move, the Government changed the reporting system for a wide range of electronic crimes, making them the responsibility of financial services companies rather than police (Police report), in other words the banks became the first point of contact for customers who are victims of online fraud.

A cybercrime is being committed every ten seconds in Britain, new research suggests.

Computer crooks struck 3.24 million times last year, with some online offences outstripping their real world equivalents, the figures show.

Even this figure may be just the tip of the iceberg, as 90 per cent of cybercrimes are thought to go unreported.

Experts are warning that not enough is being done to tackle the problem, seriously denting Britain's aspirations to be a world IT leader.

Topping the list of computer crimes last year were the 1.94million cases of online harassment – including threatening or abusive e-mails, or offensive allegations posted on websites.

The next most common offences were the 850,000 sex crimes, such as cyberstalking, unwanted sexual approaches in chatrooms and paedophiles grooming children for sex. UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre

There were also 207,000 financial frauds – up a third on 2005 and outstripping 199,800 offline frauds.

In addition, there were 92,000 online identity theft offences – about 40 per cent of all such cases – and 144,500 cases of hacking into another PC.