2017 Publications

Scam calls have become a reality of our day-to-day lifes. At one time or another we will have all had to deal with scam calls or nuisance call on our mobiles and landlines. The scamming industry has become increasingly professionalised, targeting individuals who are least able to recognise the calls as complex scams. 

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The headline story of 2016 threat landscape was the explosive growth of ransomware and the massive email campaigns that delivered it to organisations of all sizes around the world. Highly personalized, targeted email campaigns focus on exploiting people, not just their technology. Spear-phishing email campaigns, which target specific people rather than indiscriminately seeking victims, were automated to operate at scale. Despite their large numbers, many included multiple personal details specific to the targeted recipient. Social engineering campaigns used documents with malicious macros and other techniques that tricked users into installing malware.

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With almost one in every two crimes a fraud or cybercrime there has never been a more urgent time for organisations to be alert to both the external and internal fraud threat. Through Cifas, their members contributed over 325,000 cases of fraud to the national picture: the highest number ever recorded to CIFAS databases – the National Fraud Database and the Internal Fraud Database. 2016, saw a 1.2% increase in overall fraud recorded to our databases. Identity fraud reached the highest levels ever recorded with almost 173,000 cases reported by CIFAS member organisations. Fraudsters continued to focus on online applications, with 88% of identity frauds being internet-enabled.

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For the tenth time, the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) delves into the murky world of cybersecurity. It brings together the collective experience of 65 organizations to give you the full picture on cybercrime. 61% of the data breach victims in this year’s report are businesses with under 1,000 employees. 95% of phishing attacks that led to a breach were followed by some sort of software installation. While attackers are using new tactics and tricks, their overall strategies remain relatively unchanged. Understanding them is critical to knowing how to defend your organization from cyber-attacks

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This report details the findings from a quantitative and qualitative survey with UK businesses on cyber security. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) commissioned the survey as part of the National Cyber Security Programme, following a previous comparable study by the Department published in 2016. It was carried out by Ipsos MORI, in partnership with the Institute for Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Portsmouth. The 2017 survey again highlights that virtually all UK businesses covered by the survey are exposed to cyber security risks.

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This report sets out the national themes that HMIC found in its 2016 inspection of police effectiveness. During this inspection, HMIC collected a modest amount of data relating to fraud, and during the course of the inspection came across a number of examples of force policy and practice designed to tackle it. HMIC also looked at the level of referrals from Action Fraud to each force and tested how individual forces then investigated these cases. HMIC found a very mixed picture with regard to fraud investigations.

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The SOCTA 2017 is a forward-looking document that both describes and anticipates emerging threats from serious and organised crime. In this edition of the SOCTA, we highlight the role of technology in particular. Criminals have always been adept at exploiting technology. Europol recommends focussing on three cross-cutting crime threats with a significant impact across the spectrum of serious and organised crime – document fraud, money laundering and the online trade in illicit goods and services.

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This brief reports on a research initiative on confidential source and whistleblower protection led by researchers at the Information Law and Policy Centre at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. It includes the findings of discussions with a specialist group of 25 investigative journalists, representatives from relevant NGOs and media organisations, media lawyers and specialist researchers in September 2016.

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This cyber security toolkit has been developed by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) to help retailers of all sizes, prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from major cyber-attacks and other forms of online criminal activity. It has been designed to introduce the issues in clear English, and provide practical, step-by-step guidance for retailers on how to set about handling sophisticated cyber-attacks such as data breaches, and how to report and address common issues such as fraudulent scams.

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This discussion paper looks at the implications of big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for data protection, and explains the ICO’s views on these. While data protection can be challenging in a big data context, the benefits will not be achieved at the expense of data privacy rights; and meeting data protection requirements will benefit both organisations and individuals. The paper sets out our views on the issues, but this is intended as a contribution to discussions on big data, AI and machine learning and not as a guidance document or a code of practice.

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