Computer crime soars in UK

COMPUTER RELATED crimes have risen by almost 10 percent in the UK last year alone, according to online identity firm, Garlick.

The report claims that over 3.5 million online crimes were committed in the UK in 2007 – most of which relate to fraud and abusive email.

Without harping on too much about the current economic situation, Tom Ilube of Garlick says that he expects a rise in online financial crimes due to these circumstances.

This is somewhat concerning, as back in 2007 this sector showed the biggest increase in online crime with more than 250,000 incidents recorded.

There is some good news, however, as online sexual offences have fallen by two percent to 830,000 recorded cases.

Although this is a movement in the right direction, unfortunately online harassment has increased dramatically with an excess of two million cases of abusive email, blackmail and false accusation.

The rise in online harassment is even more concerning as the report claims that 90 percent of cases aren't even reported.

This problem has only been accelerated by the increasing popularity of social networking sites, which encourage the display of a person’s activity and thus provide a strong medium for online harassment.

The report outlines that computer related crimes, “are just as prevalent as traditional ones”, just two years ago, “the incidents of online financial fraud doubled the number of robberies taking place”.

So, unfortunately it appears that this situation will only get worse. Ilube advises that due to the current economic uncertainty people should be more vigilant with their personal information online as he expects further growth in online financial fraud. µ