Fraud Advisory Panel slams government efforts to crack down on crooks

Ten years after the government pledged to crack down on the cyber criminals trying to cripple the UK economy, an independent charity dedicated to preventing such crime has lambasted its efforts as inadequate.

today there is a growing suspicion that we areonce more lurching from one initiative toanother, without the continuity of purpose and stability of institutions and budgets to build real capacity and resilience over the long term, the authors of The Fraud Advisory Panel’s new report argued.

Their assessment calls for a public education campaign to increase awareness of online security risks, and better monitoring of crime levels, as well as criticising policymakers for failing to manage fraud prevention activities at a national level.

Three quarters of small business owners were victims of a security breach in 2015, with the owners of such enterprises facing costs of 36bn due to procurement and payroll fraud alone, according to Experian‘s Annual Fraud Indicator.

And in December 2015, more than half of spear phishing attacks where crooks use fake emails to try and obtain financial information were targeted at SMEs.

incomplete statistics leave fraud victims at a disadvantage because they hide the true level of economic crime, resulting in decisions about police and criminal justice resources being made without a proper understanding of the true amount of fraud and who it is hurting, the new report’s authors added.

It follows an investigation carried out into fraud by the organisation in 2015 which highlighted how unhelpful attitudes to fraud victims are preventing effective responses to cyber crime.

the harm done to a business is commonly thought to be less than that experienced by an individual, but our research shows that the emotional and financial damage can be enormous for small business owners too, wrote the panel.

Worried about email fraud damaging your micro business? Here’s how to prevent that from happening.