Two-thirds of recorded external fraud in the UK is now cyber-enabled, according to the latest figures from non-profit Cifas.
The fraud prevention service confirmed to Infosecurity Magazine that the figure jumped 4% from 2015, amounting to over 214,000 cases for 2016 reported to the National Fraud Database.
Taking internal and external fraud together, the cyber figure is even higher (88%) for identity fraud, although much less (30%) for facility/account takeover fraud.
Together, these two types of fraud compromised 60% of the total 325,092 internal and external fraud cases recorded by Cifas from 387 UK organizations over the year.
Account security has improved during that time, forcing account takeover scammers to resort to direct phone-based targeting to defraud their victims, according to Cifas.
“Using old-fashioned but highly-effective con artistry, they are tricking individuals into giving away their personal details and deceiving call center staff into making transactions on their victims’ accounts. The proliferation of personal data that is available either online or through data breaches only makes this easier,” explained Cifas CEO Simon Dukes.
“When people are targeted, education is key and we urge the next government to do more to ensure that individuals know how to avoid these tricks and can recognize the signs of a scam. Organizations, too, must focus on education for call center staff and ensure they make the most out of new technology.”
However, there were some encouraging signs from the report, with UK organizations apparently preventing over £1 billion in fraud losses through non-competitive data sharing.
Cifas is now calling on the next government to make fraud a strategic priority for UK police, to review sentencing guidelines, and to introduce fraud education into the national curriculum.
E-commerce payment fraud jumped 18% from 2015 to 2016 to reach £309m in losses last year, according to Financial Fraud Action UK figures from March.
Fraud prevention firm ThreatMetrix claimed to have stopped 130 million fraud attacks in Q1 2017, 35% more than the previous year, with 17 million attacks starting in the UK.