Banking fraud is the biggest cyber crime in Britain
Banking fraud is the biggest cyber crime in the UK, accounting for two in every five of the nearly six million online crime incidents recorded over the past year.
There were 2.5m online crimes involving banking; and credit accounts, while one million involved other types of fraud such as online shopping, new figures reveal.
There were a further two million cyber crimes such as hacking and computer viruses, newly collected data from the Office of National Statistics reveal.
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It's the first time specific data on cybercrime has been collected in the National crime survey, showing the true extent to which the country is affected. In total one in 10 adults have been a victim of a cybercrime and the ONS notes that the experimental data indicates class, age or location is not a factor.
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"The cybercrime and fraud statistics in the latest ONS crime survey are deeply concerning, but not surprising," said KPMG's head of cyber security in the UK Paul Taylor.
"It’s clear that crime is becoming cyber enabled as our world becomes digital. Greater transparency around the scale of this problem is vital, helping set the national priorities for law enforcement resources, and underlining the need for industry and government to work together to combat this growing menace.”