SEON research unveils UK’s biggest business fraud ‘hot spots’

UK-centric research conducted by anti-fraud expert SEON has revealed the areas with the highest rates of business fraud per 100,000 members of the population. The research uses data from Action Fraud and records both the total number of fraud reports in each area as well as the total number of business or corporate fraud cases. It then compares this to population data, giving relative rates of fraud and business fraud in each geographical area. 

The City of London is found to have the highest rate of corporate fraud per 100,000 people in the country at 100.92 cases. This is arguably of little surprise, given that the City of London is the centre of the UK’s financial industry and home to a huge number of businesses, while also playing host to a comparably small number of individuals.

Nottinghamshire has the second-highest rate of corporate fraud in the country, making the county a much riskier place in which to do business than the majority of the country.

In third place is North Yorkshire. This largely rural county is home to several well-off small cities and market towns, such as York and Harrogate, which act as business hubs for the area and are likely the focus of fraudsters’ attentions in the region.

UK’s business fraud ‘hot spots’

Rank	Police Force	Population	Corporate Fraud Reports	Corporate Fraud Reports per 100,000 People
1	City of London	10,900	11	100.92
2	Nottinghamshire	1,170,500	163	13.93
3	North Yorkshire	831,600	103	12.39
4	Cumbria	499,800	48	9.60
5	Hertfordshire	1,195,700	92	7.69
6	Kent	1,868,200	123	6.58
7	North Wales	703,400	46	6.54
8	Cheshire	1,069,600	68	6.36
9	Humberside	934,400	59	6.31
10	Gwent	598,200	37	6.19

County Durham, the territory policed by the Durham Constabulary, has the highest average losses per report of business fraud in the country. The huge sum involved is more than three times higher than every region other than second place, which it is still noticeably higher than.

Areas with most costly incidents

Rank	Police Force	Corporate Fraud Reports	Corporate Fraud Losses	Average Losses per Corporate Fraud Report
1	Durham	6	£762,800	£127,133
2	City of London	11	£1,300,000	£118,182
3	Lancashire	43	£1,700,000	£39,535
4	Warwickshire	14	£545,200	£38,943
5	Merseyside	25	£599,400	£23,976
6	PSNI	54	£1,000,000	£18,519
7	Derbyshire	21	£387,200	£18,438
8	Metropolitan	305	£4,900,000	£16,066
9	Thames Valley	101	£1,600,000	£15,842
10	Greater Manchester	110	£1,700,000	£15,455

In second place is the City of London. While still being much higher than the majority of other regions, it’s perhaps surprising that the City of London didn’t top the leader board in this instance given that it plays host to the UK’s finance industry.

Lancashire is the third most expensive place to be hit by business fraud. While substantially lower than the average losses incurred in County Durham and in the City of London, the figure involved is still high enough to put some small companies out of business altogether.

The City of London places top as the region most susceptible to all forms of fraud, with 143,092 reports per 100,000 people. The second region most susceptible to all forms of fraud, with 568 reports of fraud per 100,000 people, is the area covered by Dyfed-Powys Police in Wales. 

Northumbria tops the list as the most expensive part of the UK in which to fall victim to any type of fraud, with average losses per incident standing at £11,661.

*Further information concerning the SEON research results is available online at https://seon.io/resources/business-fraud-hotspots/ 

Fraud and cyber crime

UK residents and businesses have seen financial losses of £2.5 billion from fraud and cyber crime over the course of the past year, a new study reveals. Research undertaken by Payback Ltd analysed data drawn from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau to reveal that the UK has reported almost 500,000 cases of fraud and cyber crime that have resulted in financial loss.

Spanning data from November 2020 to November 2021, it was found that the UK has reported an average 40,586 cases of fraud and cyber crime per month, with an average financial loss of £5,700 per case.

The height of cyber crime activity appeared during the earlier months of the year. In February, the UK reported 47,800 cases equating to £267.6 million in financial losses, while in March more than 48,500 cases amounted to losses of £219.3 million.

Monthly breakdown of UK Cyber Crime and Fraud reports (November 2020 to November 2021)

	Total # Reports	Total Financial Loss (£)	Average loss per reported case (£)
Nov 2020	36,277	165,400,000	4,559
Dec 2020	35,739	163,500,000	4,575
Jan 2021	41,347	138,700,000	3,355
Feb 2021	47,801	267,600,000	5,598
Mar 2021	48,546	219,300,000	4,517
Apr 2021	41,404	161,800,000	3,908
May 2021	39,614	220,500,000	5,566
Jun 2021	35,024	167,500,000	4,782
Jul 2021	35,701	173,900,000	4,871
Aug 2021	32,636	165,300,000	5,065
Sept 2021	28,160	245,800,000	8,729
Oct 2021	32,995	187,000,000	5,668
Nov 2021	31,791	231,100,000	7,269

Fraudulent activity using online shopping and auctions amounts to more than 100,000 reported cases through the year (100,168 in total) that equate to a value of £77.1 million in financial loss. The overall umbrella of ‘consumer fraud’ includes other criminal activity such as dating scams and bogus tradesmen, and accounts for £437.2 million of the country’s losses last year.

Overall, fraud and cyber crime cases relating to individual British residents account for 87% of the country’s total report volume. This translates to £1.8 billion of financial losses incurred over a reported 421,473 cases. Those aged 20-29 reported the most instances of criminal activity, with 82,000 reports made across the course of the year, followed closely by those aged 30-39, who clocked in 80,000-plus reports.

There were 62,976 reports made by British businesses throughout 2021, equating to a total reported financial loss of £736.3 million.

Commenting on the research findings, a spokesperson for Payback Ltd stated: “It’s difficult to see such high figures relating to fraudulent and criminal activity taking place over the course of the year. It is now imperative that members of the British public exercise caution when making financial transactions of any kind. They must ensure that they’re confident any transactions are conducted via official, safe and legal means.”

Hackers impersonate Marks and Spencer CEO Steve Rowe in £35 ‘free’ gift voucher scam

Cyber criminals have launched an audacious online scam designed to trick Marks and Spencer (M&S) customers into handing over confidential data by attempting to impersonate the famous High Street retailer’s CEO Steve Rowe.

The fraudulent adverts, uncovered by the Parliament Street Think Tank’s cyber research team, were launched via social networking site Facebook from an unverified page entitled ‘Marks and Spencer Store’.

Users have been bombarded with adverts showing a man (who’s not Steve Rowe) holding M&S-branded bags accompanied by the message: “Hello everyone. My name is Steve Rowe and I’m the CEO of Marks and Spencer. I’ve an announcement to make. To celebrate our 135th Anniversary, we’re giving EVERYONE who shares and then comments by 11.59 pm tonight one of these mystery bags containing a £35 M&S voucher plus goodies! Make sure you enter here [URL].”

The fake URL takes unsuspecting users to an M&S-branded portal where they’re asked for their name, address, mobile phone number and bank details including sort code and account number in order to ‘enter’ the prize draw.

Around 150 members of the public had identified and reported the scam, which was flagged to consumer groups and raised as an issue on social media.

In a statement, Marks and Spencer commented: “We have been made aware of this advert and it isn’t genuine. Our colleagues are investigating further.”

Expert observations

Cyber security expert Andy Heather, vice-president of Centrify, observed: “With more people than ever committed to online retail shopping due to COVID-19, it’s likely that we’ll see a surge of ‘exclusive’ or ‘one-time only’ deals pop up on social media, via e-mail and through SMS messages over the course of the next few months up until Christmas. Unfortunately, many of these sales and deals, much like this M&S one, will be a scam designed to steal confidential data, such as payment details or log-in credentials.”

Heather continued: “If people may have already fallen victim to a scam of this nature, it’s essential that they take proactive measures to stop these scammers in their tracks. This requires individuals to report these scams to the impersonated brand, freeze bank accounts and change log-in details. It’s very common for attackers to hold on to stolen log-in credentials for months after an attack, waiting for the victim to drop their guard before re-breaking in to other accounts protected by the same password.”

Tim Sadler, CEO at Tessian, explained: “Phishing scams don’t just reside in your Inbox. Hackers are increasingly using social media as another hunting ground for their victims. With the lure of a prize giveaway, cyber criminals are hoping that people will click the URL link to ‘enter’ the competition. Those that do click are led to a malicious website that prompts them to enter valuable personal information and credit card details.”

Sadler concluded: “As we head into the busy pre-Christmas shopping season, we can only expect to see more of these types of ‘sale’ scams emerge online. Treat these posts just like you would any phishing e-mail. Ask yourself if this deal seems legitimate and verify the identity of the person requesting you to take action before clicking on any links. In this instance, the scammers have used a picture of someone who isn’t the CEO of M&S. If you’re still unsure, visit the retailer’s website and official social media channels to cross-check that the deal has been mentioned elsewhere.”

HID Global “brings trust” to online and mobile banking in face of cyber threat

As consumers embrace the convenience of online and mobile banking at both traditional and the latest all-digital financial institutions, it has become an increasingly difficult challenge to combat cyber security threats while complying with regulatory data protection mandates. Trusted identity solutions specialist HID Global has solved those challenges for several banks as part of their digital transformation initiatives.

“Our solutions protect data and transactions while delivering a seamless experience for the consumer as well as maximum flexibility for banks,” explained Brad Jarvis, vice-president and managing director of identity and access management solutions at HID Global. “This includes the option of cloud-based authentication services that remove the complexity of providing multifactor authentication to a growing and diverse user population, while also offering the convenience and efficiency of centralised regulatory compliance audits.”

Challenging issues

As a business, HID Global is helping to address some of the most challenging of mobile banking issues. For example, a retail bank in Egypt has improved compliance and reduced fraud and operational costs thanks to an HID Trusted Transactions solution. This is pre-integrated with Temenos digital front office and core banking products.

In addition, a Swiss wealth management group is using the solution, along with the HID ActivID Authentication Server, to optimise flexibility while protecting mobile banking transactions and securing corporate data, applications and systems.

Further, two banks in Eastern Europe and the UK are using the solution for quick and easy compliance with Second Payment Services Directive (ie PSD2) regulations.

Even with financial institutions returning to (almost) normal operating hours, many believe digital banking will grow in importance as part of ensuring business continuity and supporting customers who prefer not to visit their local branch during the ongoing health crisis. According to a McKinsey & Company report, the use of digital channels has grown in Europe by up to 20% during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adoption of digital banking

“In just a couple of months, customers’ adoption of digital banking has leapt forward by a couple of years,” suggests the document. “Our most recent customer survey showed a 10% to 20% rise in digital banking use across Europe in April. Many Italian banks are striving to enable every single one of their customers to use digital banking. Such a jump in adoption opens the door for banks to turn digital channels into real sales channels, not just convenient self-service tools.”

HID Global’s complete HID Trusted Transactions offer for end users in the banking and finance sector includes the HID Authentication platform delivered either as a server or service, plus a choice of hardware tokens or the HID Approve multi-factor authentication solution with mobile push notification capabilities and the HID Risk Management Solution – Threat and Fraud Detection.

The comprehensive offer from the business delivers risk-based adaptive authentication, threat detection and transaction signing.

*Click here for more information about HID’s advanced multi-factor authentication solutions for the banking sector

BAE Systems launches “major update” to NetReveal platform for financial institutions

The latest version of BAE Systems’ NetReveal platform combines the best of advanced analytics and human expertise to enable financial institutions to effectively combat financial crime and fraud in an environment of rapidly evolving regulatory requirements and changing financial crime patterns.

Faced with increasing transactions, evolving regulations, a growing number of payment channels, customer friction, investigation challenges and strengthening privacy regimes, financial crime and fraud investigators are under pressure to make more confident and intelligence-led decisions and do so at an unprecedented pace.

Built on modernised modular technology, NetReveal addresses these challenges by working smarter and faster and supporting an intelligence-led approach:

Smarter: Profiling and detection against transactional data that commonly takes hours to process is now processed within 30 minutes (on average)

Faster: Advanced analytics with machine learning techniques improve operational performance by driving fewer false positives. Integrated Robotic Process Automation (RPA) means that routine tasks are automated, enabling investigators to focus more on high value strategic investigative work. The Real-Time Detection Engine helps institutions to keep pace with sophisticated criminals across growing digital channels

Intelligence-Led: Entity-based investigations deliver efficiency improvements of 20-30% on average by streamlining multiple detections into a single combined alert dashboard. Interactive lists also provide actionable information to adjudicate alerts effectively

Culmination of major investment

Rob Harrison, head of product and solutions for the financial services sector at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, said: “This release is the culmination of major investment and engineering development of our financial crime platform and suite of solutions. We’ve focused on providing compliance and fraud teams with the latest advanced analytics, technology advancements and productivity improvements.”

Harrison added: “The latest version of NetReveal combines the best of human expertise and advanced analytics which we believe puts financial institutions in the strongest position possible to address the major market challenges of today, namely regulatory complexity and change, evolving fraud patterns, productivity and efficiency pressures and new risk management approaches.”

Julie Conroy, research director for the Aite Group’s Retail Banking practice, commented: “The use of RPA to improve financial crime operations significantly increases accuracy, reduces operational costs and enhances productivity. Given the growing data challenge, having the ability to advance investigator efficiency by reducing repetitive manual tasks, human error and, by extension, the number of false positives ultimately frees up time to focus on more strategic tasks.”

NetReveal is a single integrated platform for money laundering compliance and fraud prevention, enabling financial institutions to benefit from lower total cost of ownership across their compliance and fraud teams thanks to a single solution.

A comprehensive range of compliance and counter-fraud solutions can be deployed either individually or collectively.

Tackling Economic Crime Awards 2019: Call for Nominations

Entries are now open for the inaugural Tackling Economic Crime Awards (TECAs) organised by the World Excellence Awards team who also run the Outstanding Security Performance Awards (OSPAs).

The TECAs are independent and designed to acknowledge companies, initiatives, individuals and teams who have made an outstanding contribution to tackling economic crime, including any area of fraud, money laundering, bribery and corruption.

The awards are free to enter and open to anyone working in the UK and operating in the public, private or third sectors. 

 

Commenting on the TECAs, founder Professor Martin Gill CSyP said: “These awards are different. Judges are nominated by fraud specialist associations and groups and all of the leading ones are involved. The Judges mark to an ethics policy and there’s an ethical sponsorship policy in place, too.”   

The entry process is open until 1 August 2019. Nominations are now invited in the following categories:

* Outstanding Manager or Director

* Outstanding Team

* Outstanding Customer Service Initiative

* Outstanding Training Initiative

* Outstanding New Product

* Outstanding Training Initiative

* Outstanding Partnership

* Outstanding Investigator

* Outstanding Policing Initiative

* Outstanding Young Professional

* Outstanding Cyber Company

* Outstanding Female Professional

* Outstanding Prevention Initiative

* Lifetime Achievement Award 

Winners of the TECAs will be announced at a prestigious Awards Ceremony to be held on Monday 9 December at the Sheraton Grand Hotel on London’s Park Lane.

*Information on the nomination criteria and how to enter can be accessed online at www.thetecas.com

IHMA report reveals “strong demand” for packaging authentication technology

According to the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA), the Global Anti-Counterfeit Packaging Market Professional Survey Report 2018 signals the ‘added expertise… holograms provide in the authentication of packaging products’. This reaffirms the ‘strong and robust’ market for holograms among authentication devices in the coming years.

The report examines the anti-counterfeit packaging market in North America, China, Europe, Asia, Japan and India and forecasts production, revenue, consumption and import and export in these regions up to 2025. 

The market for global anti-counterfeit packaging technologies is set to continue to grow in the next few years, reaching more than US$357 billion by 2026. Growth in packaging anti-counterfeiting devices appears ‘strong and lucrative’, states the IHMA, in the face of continued incidences of global counterfeiting and sector awareness of advanced track and trace hologram technologies.

Those involved in the packaging sector, including brand owners and converters, will benefit from the commercial opportunities built around anti-counterfeit packaging technologies identified in the report.

Counterfeiting: a lucrative business

Counterfeiting is very lucrative and the IHMA is calling for all in the packaging supply chain to apply pressure to tackle the billions of fake products inundating global markets. Security devices on packaged goods can ensure quality and check the distribution and smuggling of illicit products, while items not displaying security holograms can be seized and destroyed.

Manoj Kochar: chair of the IHMA

Reviewing the report, IHMA chair Manoj Kochar said people cannot afford to rest on their laurels when it comes to the war on counterfeiting. “Holography has a key role to play as an effective and highly flexible weapon in the ongoing battle to thwart the counterfeiters and fraudsters. All involved in the supply chain will be reassured by the presence of holograms on products and recognise the benefits they provide.”

The use of well-designed and properly deployed authentication solutions, as advocated by ISO 12931, enables examiners to verify the authenticity of a legitimate product, differentiating it from fake products emanating from counterfeiting ‘hot spots’ in Asia and eastern Europe.

Even those that carry a ‘fake’ authentication feature can be distinguished from the genuine item if that item carries a carefully thought-out authentication solution.

Detail on the IHMA

The IHMA is made up of 100 of the world’s leading hologram companies. Members include the leading producers and converters of holograms for banknote security, anti-counterfeiting, brand protection, packaging, graphics and other commercial applications around the world. Those members actively co-operate to maintain the highest professional, security and quality standards.

 

Ocucon scoops six Fraud Awards nominations

Ocucon, the world’s first Video Surveillance-as-a-Service (VSaaS) system, has been shortlisted across a range of categories for this year’s prestigious Fraud Awards, the leading accolade for those in the UK’s retail risk and loss prevention sector.

Organised by loss prevention conference Retail Risk, the Fraud Awards celebrate the very best individual and team performances, innovative new products and winning strategies within the retail and loss prevention sector over the last year.

Judged by a panel of internationally-renowned loss prevention professionals, the winners and runners-up will be announced on 4 October at the Fraud Awards Gala Dinner, to be held at Leicester City Football Club.

Breaking new ground in surveillance technology, the Newcastle-based Ocucon has been shortlisted a total of six times across five categories for its unlimited cloud-based storage platform, Ocucon, as well as its intelligent video redaction service Ocucon Pixelate.

The Ocucon team (from left to right): Simon Gardner, Maral O’Brien, Stuart Ferguson, Gary Trotter and Stephen Purvis

Categories include:

• Best Newcomer – recognising the most exciting new solution or company to enter the retail risk and loss prevention arena – Ocucon
• Best Newcomer – Ocucon Pixelate
• Most Innovative In-Store Solution – celebrating innovative approaches to an existing, tried and tested solution or genre – Ocucon
• Best Collaborative Solution – recognising products, solutions or services resulting from genuine collaboration that deliver a clear Return on Investment – Ocucon
• Most Innovative In-Store Surveillance Solution – celebrating innovative new uses of camera or surveillance technology benefiting the wider business – Ocucon
• Most Innovative Cross-Functional Solution – recognising innovative products, solutions or services that have a risk or loss prevention benefit, but sit outside of the Profit Protection Department – Ocucon Pixelate

Ocucon’s co-founder Gary Trotter commented: “To be shortlisted in this year’s Fraud Awards and across so many categories is testament to the great team we have based here in Newcastle, as well as our innovative and collaborative approach. Since our launch in October, we’ve worked with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Dell and Google, to deliver the first-of-its-kind cloud-based storage service for CCTV and surveillance technology and launch our new intelligent video redaction service Ocucon Pixelate. As a result, we’ve seen significant interest in Ocucon both from large UK corporations and retailers, but also major retailers in North America. Our story is just one example of how tech start-ups can thrive here in the North East to compete on both the UK and the global stage.”

Launched in October last year, Ocucon is set to revolutionise the ability of businesses to defend against fraudulent cases of slips, trips and falls – currently estimated to cost the UK’s economy alone more than £800 million each year – by removing physical limitations on the amount of surveillance footage an organisation can save.

Ocucon delivers a powerful, cloud-based storage and retrieval platform combining intelligent data analytics with the facility to store, analyse and retrieve unlimited amounts of HD video surveillance footage from within the Ocucon portal.

Ocucon is expected to be of interest to any organisation capturing significant amounts of CCTV data. Since its launch, Ocucon has seen significant interest from both UK and US supermarkets and retail chains.

Unwitting cyber scammers cold call industry expert at C3IA Solutions

Would-be cyber scammers made a megabyte blunder when they cold-called Matt Horan of C3IA Solutions: Horan is one of the country’s top cyber security experts. Realising the crooks were trying to take control of his computer, Horan put the call on speaker phone and asked a colleague to record it, with hilarious consequences.

After stringing out the conversation for 35 minutes – during which time he was passed to more senior ‘helpers’ as he posed as an ignorant computer user – Horan then informed the caller that he had no Internet connection.

This prompted the fraudster to use an expletive before hanging up in anger. An edited video of the call has been amusing people across social media.

Horan is keen that the video is used to help people avoid falling for cyber scams. He told Risk UK: “One of the weakest parts of any business’ cyber security is the staff. They do nothing malicious, but can easily assist fraudsters. Along with ‘phishing’ e-mails, this type of phone scam is common and can cause huge amounts of damage.”

Matt Horan of C3IA Solutions

Horan continued: “The caller purports to be from Microsoft or a similar outfit and informs the person who answered the call that there’s a problem with their computer. They then instruct that person to look at the computer’s ‘systems and events logs’, which is simply a log of every action taken. They tell them that this is evidence of ongoing malicious attacks. After that, they try and entice them to log into TeamViewer or something similar which means they then can gain remote access and control of the target computer.”

In addition, Horan stated: “They then have all the information on a computer or network and can infect the system, read e-mails, steal passwords or encrypt the stored data. They can basically do anything they want. Obviously, this can cause massive harm to a business and may well lead to data loss, the theft of funds and the stealing of intelligence as well as cause acute embarrassment.”

C3IA Solutions trains staff at businesses to be ‘cyber-savvy’ and always to hang up on calls like this. If staff are in doubt they should contact their IT support.

“Firms such as Microsoft don’t make calls like the one I took, but they seem authentic,” explained Horan. “Often, the scammers work in pairs so the initial caller can pass over the call to a ‘senior supervisor’, as they tried with me. This gives an added authenticity. Caution should be the watchword when taking calls like this one.”

*The video can be viewed on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ncIehp0fBT8

Based in Poole, Dorset, C3IA Solutions is one of fewer than 20 companies certified by the Government’s National Cyber Security Centre. In addition to its work with Government agencies including GCHQ, the company operates a commercial section that works with businesses, assisting them with their cyber security.

C3IA (a military term) Solutions was set up in 2006 by Horan and Keith Parsons. It has 84 personnel on contract of whom 33 are employees and 51 are associates. The business operates in the defence and security sectors serving both SMEs and multi-national firms.

C3IA is a leading provider of secure ICT, technical programme management and information security services and solutions.

The company takes its Corporate Social Responsibility seriously, supporting serving and past members of the Armed Services. Indeed, the business sponsors those engaged in personal and team development through arduous sporting and other challenges.

Research suggests up to 45% of fraud linked directly to organised crime

New research conducted by the Police Foundation and Perpetuity Research has found that between 31% and 45% of fraud may be linked to organised crime. This is up to three times higher than the 15% level found in previous studies.

The research, which was funded by The Dawes Trust, looked at a large sample of frauds taking place in the Midlands and the South West. It found that fraud linked to organised crime was more harmful to victims than other types of fraud. On average, individual victims of organised fraud were likely to lose significantly more money per fraud offence (£10,260) than victims of non-organised fraud (£3,982).

Professor Martin Gill CSyP FSyI, director of Perpetuity Research and one of the research report’s authors, said: “We know that fraud, and particularly online fraud, is the new volume crime. Our research shows that organised crime groups play a much larger role in fraud than has previously been estimated, and that fraud linked to organised crime causes much more harm than other types of fraud.”

Investment fraud was most likely to be linked to organised crime, with around 70% of this fraud type estimated to be perpetrated by organised crime groups. Between a third (38%) and over a half (59%) of mass-marketing fraud is estimated to be linked to organised crime.

The research also found that the police response to fraud was inadequate. Unlike traditional crime types such as burglary and vehicle crime, victims who report a fraud rarely receive a visit from a police officer or any other official.

Response to organised fraud

There are many agencies holding a wide range of powers which could bolster the local response to organised fraud. However, at present these agencies only work together on an ad hoc basis and systematic data sharing is virtually non-existent.

Given the complexity, the expense and the low success rate of fraud investigations, a more problem-oriented, multi-agency approach would, the researchers argue, be somewhat more effective.

Police Foundation director Rick Muir explained: “Despite its increasing scale across the UK, fraud doesn’t currently receive the recognition it deserves and tends to fall between the gaps of a number of agencies, including the police. While the offenders of organised fraud are difficult to prosecute, it’s clear there are vulnerable victims to safeguard, communities to protect and crimes to be prevented. It’s more important than ever to ensure that agencies and authorities don’t relinquish their responsibilities in tackling it.”

On average, Action Fraud receives details on 25,000 reported frauds per month. Based on the researchers’ estimates, this means that between 7,000 and 12,000 reported frauds could be perpetrated by organised criminals every month.

In practice, only a small proportion of these incidents are ever investigated by police forces. Furthermore, forces are not systematically recording the outcomes of fraud investigations, and are therefore not being properly held to account.

Criminals target UK’s youth as cases of identity fraud increase

Cifas, the UK’s leading fraud prevention service, has released new figures showing a 52% rise in young identity fraud victims in the UK. In 2015, just under 24,000 (23,959) people aged 30 and under were victims of identity fraud. This is up from 15,766 in 2014, and more than double the 11,000 victims in this age bracket in 2010.

The figures have been published on the same day as a new short film, entitled ‘Data to Go’, is launched online to raise awareness of this type of fraud. Shot in a London coffee shop in March this year, the film uses hidden cameras to capture baffled reactions from people caught in a stunt where their personal data, all found on public websites, is revealed to them live on a coffee cup.

Identity fraud happens when a fraudster pretends to be an innocent individual to buy a product or take out a loan in their name. Often, victims don’t even realise that they’ve been targeted until a bill arrives for something they didn’t buy or they experience problems with their credit rating.

To carry out this kind of fraud successfully, fraudsters usually have access to their victim’s personal information such as name, date of birth, address, their bank details and information on who they hold accounts with. Fraudsters gain such detail in a variety of ways, including through hacking and data loss, as well as using social media to put the pieces of someone’s identity together. 86% of all identity frauds in 2015 were perpetrated online.

People of all ages can be at risk of identity fraud, but with growing numbers of young people falling victim, Cifas is calling for better education around fraud and financial crime.

Fraudsters are opportunists

Simon Dukes, CEO of Cifas, said: “Fraudsters are opportunists. As banks and lenders have become more adept at detecting false identities, so the fraudsters have instead focused on stealing and using genuine people’s details. Society, Government and industry all have a role to play in preventing fraud. However, our concern is that the lack of awareness about identity fraud is making it even easier for fraudsters to obtain the information they need.”

Dukes continued: “The likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other online platforms are much more than just social media sites – they’re now a hunting ground for identity thieves. We’re urging people to check their privacy settings today and think twice about what information they share. Social media is fantastic, and the way we live our lives online gives us huge opportunities. Taking a few simple steps will help us to enjoy the benefits while reducing the risks. To a fraudster, the information we put online is a goldmine.”

Commander Chris Greany, the City of London Police’s national co-ordinator for economic crime, added: “We’ve known for some time that identity fraud has become the engine that drives much of today’s criminality, and so it’s vitally important that people keep their personal information safe and secure. In the fight against fraud, education is key and it’s great that Cifas and its members are taking identity fraud seriously and working together to raise awareness of how the issue is now increasingly affecting young people through the launch of this film.”

As part of the campaign, Cifas commissioned a survey with Britain Thinks to find out more about 18-24 year olds’ attitudes towards personal data and identity fraud. The survey found that young people are alarmingly unaware that they’re at risk:

• Only 34% of 18-24 year olds say they learned about online security when they were at school
• 50% of the 18-24 year olds surveyed believe they would never fall for an online scam (compared to the national average of 37%)
• Only 57% of 18-24 year olds report thinking about how secure their personal details are online (compared to 73% for the population as a whole)

They’re also less likely to install anti-virus software on their mobile phone than the national average (27% compared to 37%).

Organisations such as the City of London Police, Action Fraud, Get Safe Online, Her Majesty’s Government’s Cyber Streetwise campaign, Financial Fraud Action UK and Cifas members including Coventry Building Society, BT and Secure Trust Bank are all supporting the campaign and sharing the new film across their social media networks.

Cifas is also appealing to youth organisations, schools and universities to share the film so it reaches as many young people as possible.