As we move into the second quarter of the 21st century, crime types and methods continue to change.
One particular area of risk for our communities is fraud, and in particular, offences being committed in the online space—also known as cyber crime.
According to Action Fraud, between November 2023 and January 2024, shoppers across the UK lost more than £11.5 million to scammers online.
That is a huge amount of money.
Losing money to criminals will always have a significant impact on victims, but it can be particularly impactful at a time of year when people may already be worried about their finances around Christmas.
With so much of modern life operated online, many of us have adapted to become more and more dependent on shopping and paying for transactions with online banking, for example.
As our banks and financial services improve their security, unfortunately, criminal opportunists will follow a similar path in looking at ways to improve how they get around such measures and continue to commit crimes.
The easiest way is most often through exploiting human vulnerabilities and forcing errors or misjudged actions through deception and outright trickery.
When we are busy or distracted with other concerns, sometimes it is easy to be caught out as our guard is down.
Criminals know this and will often use time-pressured tactics to increase their success rate.
This time of year, post-Christmas, can also be a time when online shopping increases in pursuit of bargains.
Sometimes they can be too good to be true.
In our ongoing efforts to reduce crime across the Isle of Wight and protect the vulnerable, we are supporting the National Cyber Security Centre's Stop! Think Fraud campaign and encouraging online shoppers to stay vigilant and protect themselves from cyber criminals.
Online scams are becoming more sophisticated, and as the January sales continue, it’s important to take simple steps to safeguard yourself.
We’re encouraging islanders to double up on their defences by using something called 2-step verification (2SV) on their accounts.
Turning on 2SV can be done in a matter of minutes—time well spent to keep fraudsters out.
There is a step-by-step guide online on how to enable this feature across popular services and devices.
You can read this here: https://stopthinkfraud.campaign.gov.uk/protect-yourself-from-fraud/protecting-against-online-fraud/turn-on-2-step-verification-2sv/
As well as reading up to protect yourself, please encourage any friends, relatives, or neighbours—particularly if they are vulnerable or elderly—to take a look.
Perhaps offer them a hand setting it up to help protect them.
This is a monthly column by Supt Rob Mitchell
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