News

New weapons in the war on cybercrime
15 September 2021

It is a nightmare that plagues both business and private users alike, but cyber security experts are continuing to fight back against the online crooks using email scams targeting their organisations.

The UK’s cyber police force, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), has published guidance for businesses on a new reporting tool that can be added to their organisation’s Microsoft Office 365 accounts where potential scams can be reported directly to the NCSC’s Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS).

It is just one weapon in the long battle against online criminals and comes as the cost to the UK from cybercrime incidents amounts to £5.7 million this year.

More than ever the internet is vitally important to the UK economy but is also exploited by those wishing to cause harm – with cybercrime being largely invisible but having devastating effects on companies and their employees.

A generation of tech-savvy younger people has also become a prime target for scammers and phishers.

Phishing is when attackers attempt to trick users into disclosing personal information by clicking a malicious link that will download malware, or directing them to an insecure website.

There have been 14,883 cybercrime incidents involving scammers and phishers since the start of the year, with one-third of the total losses, £1.9 million, coming from businesses, according to fraud prevention experts PPC Shield.

Since 1 January this year, their survey shows that 43 per cent of reported incidents involve hacking, fake social media posting and email scams.

Since its launch in April 2020, the Suspicious Email Reporting Service has received over 6,500,000 reports from the public – resulting in the removal of more than 97,000 scam URLs.

Link: UK reports £5.7 million of losses due to cybercrime