Report: "Complacent Consumers" Responsible For Rise In Cybercrime

New Low In Blaming The Victim

"UK cybercrime has rebounded to worrying levels, not seen since 2006, as a result of the recession and consumer complacency, according to Garlik's annual UK Cybercrime report.

"The report, which analyses publicly available data to build a comprehensive view of cybercrime in the UK, revealed that during 2008 cybercriminals adapted to the social and economic changes in the UK to exploit victims in new ways and commit over 3.6 million criminal acts online (that’s over one every 10 seconds). In addition, the researchers believe that there is a growing complacency amongst consumers demonstrating poor understanding of their responsibility to protect their personal information against fraud.

"One of the most significant changes in cybercrime has been the 207% increase in account takeover[1] fraud indicating that criminals have now shifted their efforts from opening new accounts with stolen identities to accessing existing accounts. Savvy criminals have got round the drying up of available credit in the current economic climate to maintain their illegal activities.

"`We fear that account takeover fraud will continue to increase in 2009 due to the decline of available credit and tighter credit checking by the banks,` commented Tom Ilube, CEO, Garlik. `Consumers must be extra vigilant of all their online and financial accounts as well as avoiding increasingly convincing phishing scams.`"

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