More than 6,000 cases of Covid-related fraud and cyber-crime have been recorded by the UK’s police forces during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Action Fraud team said \u00a334.5m had been stolen since 1 March 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It covers activity in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a related development, the National Cyber Security Centre has told the BBC it is tackling about 30 “significant attacks” a month against the country’s pandemic response infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These involves attempts to breach the NHS, vaccine producers and vaccine supply chains, among other organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There unfortunately have been a number of successful ransomware incidents against businesses – I can think of roughly around 10,” NCSC operations director Paul Chichester said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Twin peaks
\nOther figures disclosed by City of London Police, which co-ordinates efforts to combat fraud, include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
more than 150 related arrests were made since the pandemic began
\nmore than 2,000 websites, phone numbers and email addresses linked to the crimes were taken down
\nthere was a total of 416,000 reports of fraud and cyber-crime
\nThe activity peaked between April and May 2020, and January 2021 – both times when lockdowns were in force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this may be the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Crime Agency estimates that just one in five fraud cases are typically reported to the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the volunteer-run Cyber Helpline told the BBC only a quarter of those who had contacted it after a cyber-attack said they had also reported the incident to the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bank loan scam
\nMany of the scams involved conning people out of their money and financial details by focusing on internet shopping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Related fraud was 42% higher over the pandemic than the preceding year, as criminals took advantage of the fact many physical stores had been forced to close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anna – not her real name – from Cheltenham was one of thousands of people who received an SMS message asking her to go online and rearrange a parcel delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She filled in her details, but later suspected something was wrong. She alerted her bank and cancelled her bank card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I thought, now I have nothing to worry about, everything is fine and case closed,” she told the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the criminals used the details they had already obtained to authorise her bank to credit her account with a \u00a39,000 loan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And a short while later they called her, pretending to be the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not realising the scam, Anna told them she had not taken out a loan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They gave me the sort code and bank account number I needed to pay back the loan, and said if I paid the \u00a39,000 there wouldn’t be any charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But then I was still feeling suspicious, so I Googled the sort code, and it came up with a completely different bank.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, Anna called her bank directly and realised the scammers had returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I didn’t lose any money but it did feel like a real burglary to be honest,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She closed her account, and changed her email address and mobile number. But she still does not feel safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Email attack
\nCharities are also common targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One in three charities suffered a cyber-attack during the first 10 months of the pandemic, according to Ecclesiastical Insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One victim actually specialises in offering cyber-security advice to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hackers got inside Charity Digital’s network for seven days without being detected. They compromised its email accounts and sent false invoices to clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The organisation’s chief executive, Jonathan Chevallie, told the BBC the breach had not been noticed in part because all his staff had been working from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Charity Digital spent more than \u00a310,000 investigating the attack and has produced an online webinar to help others avoid a similar fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fake tech support
\nAnother popular type of cyber-fraud involved romance scams, in which people looking for relationships via the net often get fooled into sending money to prospective partners, who prey on their emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This type of crime was 20% more common over the past year than the one before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
City of London Police also said key workers had also been specifically targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In one case, a man was arrested on suspicion of using social media to advertise bogus car insurance policies to NHS workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pandemic appears, however, to have coincided with a fall in one type of cyber-crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reported cases of computer software service fraud – in which criminals call offering fake tech support to fool victims into sharing their payment card details and other credentials – dropped by 15.5%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 6,000 cases of Covid-related fraud and cyber-crime have been recorded by the UK’s police forces during the pandemic. The Action Fraud team said \u00a334.5m had been stolen since 1 March 2020. It covers activity in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not Scotland. In a related development, the National Cyber Security Centre has … Continue reading “Covid fraud: \u00a334.5m stolen in pandemic scams”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3223,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222\/revisions\/3223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}