Businesses in London have lost over £1billion to online crime, including insurance-related fraud which has soared by 68% in a year.
These are the newest figures from Get Safe Online and Action Fraud, which showed that the number of reported crimes went up from 30,475 in 2014 to 37,070 in 2015.
According to Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud and cyber crime reporting centre, each police force has recorded an average of £19.6million in losses by businesses in their area.
However, the figure could be even higher since some businesses choose not to report online crime to the police, Action Fraud said.
Among the online crimes that businesses must watch out for is “mandate fraud”, which rose by 66% from 1,403 in 2014 to 2,323 in 2015.
Action Fraud also alerted businesses against “CEO fraud” and “corporate employee fraud,” as 1,440 cases were recorded last year.
Hacking is still one of the most widely reported types of fraud in the past 12 months, with 1314 cases in 2015.
Other types of fraud committed against specific industry sectors such as insurance and retail also accounted for a substantial proportion of crimes reported by businesses, according to Action Fraud.
Insurance-related fraud soared by 68% or from 587 cases in 2014 to 986 cases in 2015. Retail fraud, meanwhile, increased by 71% or from 3,559 cases to 8,163 cases in the same period.
“Businesses are a major target for fraudsters and these figures illustrate the significant rise in Action Fraud reports. The true figure will be much higher and businesses need to take steps as many of these crimes could be prevented,” said London police commander Chris Greany, the police national coordinator for economic crime.
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