UK Cyber Extortion Rose by 39% in One Year, International Law Firm Reveals – Source: heimdalsecurity.com

The number of cases of online extortion reported to the police rose by almost 40% in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, an international commercial law firm from the UK.

Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting center for fraud and cybercrime, provided the data for the full year up to December 2022.

From 2,300 to 3,200 Cases of Cyber Extortion in the UK

Last year, 3,200 cases of cyber extortion were reported, including ransomware, sextortion, and cases in which data is stolen and held for ransom. This is an increase from 2300 cases in 2021, explains RPC.

The number of reports made by victims of email and social media hacking also increased by 8%, from 13,500 in 2021 to 14,600 in 2022, the law firm also revealed.

Email accounts belonging to lawyers, accountants, and other trusted professionals are frequently hacked as part of an impersonation attack, with the fraudster claiming to be on the receiving end of scam messages designed to trick victims into wiring money to themselves.

Richard Breavington, partner and head of cyber and tech insurance at RPC, has stated that while attacks against larger organizations have decreased over the past year, SMEs and individuals still struggle to effectively manage cyber risk.

SMEs trying to reduce costs and not investing in properly training staff on how to manage data and avoid phishing attacks is a false economy. There are an increasing number of cyber-insurance policies available, some of which are aimed at SMEs that cover the cost of dealing with a data breach.

However, some of these policies will require basic security steps to have been taken. Insurance cover isn’t going to completely remove the impact of a data breach such as reputational damage but will allow a business to get back on its feet faster.

Source

According to the most recent government survey on data breaches, only 36% of micro and small businesses currently have cyber insurance. For businesses with between 51 and 250 employees, that number rises to 63%, explains Infosecurity Magazine.

RPC’s full press release is available here.

How to Prevent Ransomware?

If you want to learn more about ransomware, check out our other articles where we explain everything in detail: how ransomware spreads, how to mitigate it, how to prevent ransomware and how to build a successful cybersecurity strategy.

From our point of view, as a cyber security company, we believe that a multi-layered protection is the best approach if you want to stop ransomware before it does any damage. This can include: a ransomware encryption tool, firewall, a good antivirus, DNS filtering, email security, automated patching, access controls and so on.

If you need more consultancy on this topic, reach out to our team and book a dedicated session.

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