Case Studies

Cyber worries

by Mark Rowe

Most – 63 per cent – of Londoners are worried, with reason, about becoming victims of fraud through using online banking or by using their credit or debit cards on the internet.

Of the 1004 Londoners surveyed, more had been the victim of an online theft or fraud than of more traditional forms of property crime, such as burglary or robbery. That’s according to a report by the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee – ‘Tightening the net: the Metropolitan Police’s response to online theft and fraud’. For the report in full visit http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Tightening%20the%20net.pdf

Some 16 per cent of respondents told that they had been a victim of online banking or credit or debit fraud in the past 12 months. And 21 cent said that they had been a victim of “other” online fraud, which could have included mass-marketing emails scams, or other attempts to trick people into giving away money or sharing personal details via email or social networking sites. In contrast, only 10 per cent said someone had stolen a personal possession from them in the past 12 months.

The 58-page report complains that the police are ‘behind the curve’ when it comes to tackling online crime; and it stressed how little we know about such crime, partly because of flawed official measurements. It said that ‘cyber-criminals do not fit into a typical mould. Even within London, the range of perpetrators is broad. Organised crime groups are responsible for an element of online crime in London, but the precise number of these groups is unknown.” That also is a cause and effect of under-reporting of crime to police; the report suggested that about 85 per cent of fraud and online crime offences go unreported. Victims might even be unaware of a crime committed against them in the first place. In any case, the central reporting body Action Fraud does not necessarily actually do anything concrete with cases it receives and passes to police forces.

One recommendation is for the Met Police to appoint a senior ranking officer responsible for ensuring the whole force is prepared to tackle online crime – and not just the Met’s Fraud and Linked Crime Online (FALCON) Command, announced in summer 2014. The report also highlights:

Increasingly, almost all crimes have a ‘cyber-dimension’ to them.
Fraud, in particular, has been transformed, with 70 per cent of frauds now carried out using the internet.
City of London Police estimates that, across England and Wales, 1,160,500 frauds, with a loss worth £12.1 billion, went unreported by individuals and businesses during 2013-14.

The report points out that some large businesses make a commercial decision not to report online crimes to the police, particularly if they feel there is little chance that the perpetrators will be caught. The report authors call on the London Mayor Boris Johnson to launch a London-wide campaign with the City of London Police, banks and others to raise awareness of the threat of online crime.

According to the report, the City of London Police recently introduced a new ‘bulk reporting’ system to allow businesses, particularly those that have high volumes of transactions, such as supermarkets, to report up to 250
incidents at once. The report called on police to ‘mainstream’ online crime: “The Met needs to ensure that all of its officers and staff are as comfortable policing London’s cyberspace as they are London’s streets.” While police might hardly formally trained in cyber, at least officers of the ‘Xbox and PlayStation generation’ have the skills.

What they say

Chairman of the Online Crime Working Group and Conservative London Assembly member, Roger Evans, said: “We’re glad to see that traditional forms of property crime such as burglary and robbery are falling but a worrying trend is emerging in the rise of online crime. Criminals can now target large numbers of people for little or no cost and with only limited technical knowledge. E-mail scams, for example, have become a low-risk, high-gain form of theft for criminals.

“Our report makes recommendations which we believe will help tackle the very real threat of online crime head on. Londoners need to be savvy to the large number of criminals now operating from their laptops rather than our streets. We must create a police force that bears down on criminals who feel that the internet is their safe haven.”

And Director at Victim Support in London, Jeff Gardner, said: “As a charity that supports thousands of crime victims every year, we know that cyber crime can be terrifying – it can make victims feel like they are facing a powerful and invisible attacker. Many victims feel like there’s nothing that can be done to stop online attackers and that they are alone, but this isn’t the case. It’s so important that people take steps to protect themselves online too – lots of tips can be found on our website.”

Also at the report launch was Det Supt Pete O’Doherty, Head of the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) at City of London Police. He said: “Enabling UK law enforcement to prevent, disrupt and enforce the threat from fraud and on-line crime, is our mission.

“We continue to design new ways to make fraud and cyber crime reporting more accessible to members of the public and businesses and to bring more offenders to justice. We are working proactively to design new ways of protecting victims to ensure that we reduce the threat from fraud and cyber crime”.

About the survey

The London Assembly commissioned TNS Omnibus to carry out a victimisation survey. It asked a representative sample of 1004 Londoners aged 16 or over in an online survey about their experiences of crime; between October 9 and 14, 2014. The full results are at
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/publications.

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