The report was written by criminology firm 1871 Ltd and
commissioned by online identity firm Garlik. It suggests that 60%
of the online crimes committed last year, an estimated 1.9 million
incidents, were ‘offences against the person’ including abusive or
threatening emails, false or offensive accusations posted on
websites and blackmail perpetrated over the internet.
Online identity theft reached more than 90,000 incidents,
unauthorised access to someone’s PC with ulterior intent reached
144,500 and online sexual offences 850,000, claimed the report.
According to the report, 90% of cybercrimes go unreported with
victims deterred from coming forward as they wrongly believe the
activity is not criminal or that the police will be unable or
unwilling to investigate.
In addition, the lack of a clear, legal definition for
cybercrime and therefore the absence of consistent reporting
systems are cited as key factors hindering the investigation of
e-crime in the UK.
The figures in the report are estimates, not official
statistics. The report acknowledges that measuring unreported
cybercrime is "an inherently imprecise activity" and the authors
say they drew their conclusions from analysis of various sources.
These included Hansard (the official edited verbatim report of
proceedings in Parliament), newspaper archives, and reports from
organisations such as UK payments association APACS, security firm
McAfee, accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“Our study is the first step in measuring the impact of
cybercrime in Britain," said Garlik CEO Tom Ilube “With information
about individuals circulating the internet reaching high levels
it’s ever more important for people to be vigilant about handing
out their personal data online to ensure that criminals don’t use
and abuse it.”
Stefan Fafinski, CEO of 1871, said: “Although measuring
cybercrime is difficult, it is clear that in many instances it is
outstripping ‘traditional’ crime. This is a result of the
unparalleled opportunities that the internet gives both for making
familiar crimes easier and for enabling ‘pure’ cybercrimes that
could not exist without the Internet.”
