Phishers stole £21.4 million in the first half of this year.

According to the recent report of APACS the total volume of online banking fraud has increased.
So, the report showed that during the first half of the year the online banking fraud in the UK has increased by 185% that is £21.4 million. Last year the total amount lost during the same period was £7.5 million

The main reason of such great losses phishing and spyware scams which became very “popular”
this year. "Phishing scams have grown a lot more convincing and sophisticated. Two years ago,
they were easy to spot because they were littered with spelling and grammar mistakes. Now, the websites really do look like the real thing," said the spokesman of APACS.

According to the figures  of the agency more than 20,000 phishing sites were set up in the first half of the year.

Source: Ecommerce Journal

However, online banking fraud is not the only problem of the UK population. This year card fraud losses have also hit all the records. 14% increase or £301.7 million is the result of the carders’ work. The only “positive” issue in that report was that fraud on lost or stolen cards was decreased from £30.7 to £27.3 million this year.
Last update 1st December 2008

Fact: In 2007, total card fraud losses increased by 25% to £535 million.

The success of chip & PIN has meant that over the past three years losses on transactions on the UK high street have reduced by 67% from £218.8m in 2004 to £73.0m last year.

Mail-non-receipt fraud also fell, dropping 34%, and lost and stolen card fraud showed an overall decrease on 2006 of 18%.

In 2007, counterfeit card fraud increased by 46% to £144.3 million. However, despite this fraud decreasing domestically by 32%, the overall figure increased due to fraudsters copying UK cards and using these stolen cards in countries which do not yet have chip and PIN.

The main area of card fraud to rise in 2007 was card-not-present (CNP) fraud. This increased by 37% compared with 2006. However, these losses need to be considered in the context of huge increases in both the number of people shopping online and over the phone, and the number of retailers offering telephone or online shopping. Since 2000, CNP losses have risen by 298%, but over the same time period the total value of online shopping transactions increased by 87%.

Source Apacs

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• 44% of UK businesses have suffered at least one malicious security breach. The average cost per incident was £33,000, and a number of businesses suffered losses of more than of £500,000.
• Criminals trawl public databases for information about dates of birth, social security number and address and then apply for credit cards, bank accounts or mobile phones under false identities, run up debts, disappear and change to another identity.
• Credit card fraud cost retailers in the UK more than £50 million over the Christmas period, as thieves buy goods online using false identities.

• Following significant year-on-year reductions in 2005 and 2006, cheque fraud losses in 2007 rose 10 per cent to £33.5m. However, these losses still remain relatively low compared with other fraud types.
• Thanks to chip and PIN the 2007 figures also show that fraud on lost and stolen cards (£56.2m), and mail non-receipt fraud (£10.2m), are at their lowest levels for 10 years.
• Counterfeit fraud losses have increased by 46 per cent but the vast majority of this fraud is due to criminals stealing card details in the UK to make counterfeit magnetic stripe cards for use in countries yet to upgrade to chip and PIN.
• Online banking fraud losses totalled £22.6m in 2007 – a 33 per cent decrease from 2006 losses. This year-on-year decrease is all the more impressive given that phishing incidents almost doubled from 14,156 in 2006 to 25,796 last year.