Cybercrime Victims Suffer Financial Losses in UK

By: Zain Nabi  |   August 24th, 2013   |   News

Researchers have found about 9 million web users are a victim of cybercrime in the UK while 8% suffered a major financial loss in the past year, according to the survey by university researchers. About 2.3% people lost more than £10,000 to online fraudsters which is quite shocking, said Cyber security experts at the University of Kent.

 

The researchers found that about 18.3% of the Internet users had experienced cybercrime once in their life while another one-third said it had happened more than once. Online criminals usually target people aged between 55 to 64. One reason for this is because people of this age group spend less time online. The figure for this group rose to 11.4%, according to the researchers. Also, this age group knows less about the Internet or security to maintain their account. About 27.3% people aged 18 to 24 has suffered from cybercrime.

 

When asked how much money people had lost due to any kind of online criminal activity, about 92% users replied that they had lost nothing; more than 1500 people said they had lost between £1 and £100, while 2.4% and 2.3% respondents have lost between £101 and £10,000 and more than £10,000, respectively.

 

Cybercriminals have changed the way they have operated due to the revolution of social media, Reuters reported. It said, in order to steal credit card data they used computer viruses but now they create false “Instagram” likes that is used to create buzz for a company or for a person. These cyber criminals sell these false likes in batches of 1000 on different forums of Internet hacker.

 

According to RSA, the security division of a US-based technology firm EMC, “1,000 Instagram followers could be bought for $15 (£9.50), and 1,000 Instagram “likes” cost $30 (£19), whereas 1,000 credit card numbers cost as little as $6 (£3.80).”

 

“It seems online crime has a clear impact on the lives of average UK citizens, with their accounts and credentials being compromised significantly and in some cases multiple times,” said Dr Julio Hernandez-Castro and Dr Eerke Boiten, from the University of Kent’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Cyber Security Research.

 

“Cybercrime may not yet have hit a large proportion of the British public, but successful attacks do tend to lead to substantive financial damage,” Boiten said.