Almost six million cybercrimes were committed in England and Wales during the previous year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed.
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The figures emerged as the most authoritative official estimates on the scale of the offences were revealed, with one in 10 people now said to be a victim of at least one fraud or computer misuse offence.
He said in England and Wales there were an “estimated 3.8 million fraud and two million computer misuse offences”.
Brandon Lewis, the policing minister, pointed to overall figures, excluding online crime, showing a six per cent drop in offending over the last 12 months and putting the crime rate at its lowest level for 35 years.
More that one in ten people are falling victim to online scams, the Office for National Statistics has said.
In total 5.8 million “fraud and computer misuse incidents” were committed.
The 2 million “computer misuse incidents” included 1.4 million cases related to viruses while the remaining 600,000 were cases of “unauthorized access to personal information”, which included incidents of hacking.
“In 49% of non-investment frauds (such as fraud related to online shopping scams or fraudulent computer service calls) and 76% of all other frauds (for example, lottery scams, pyramid or Ponzi schemes or charity fraud) there was no loss to the victim”.
‘Together, these offences are similar in magnitude to the existing headline figures covering all other crime survey offences.
Crime levels will be set out in unprecedented detail today with the publication of official estimates of fraud and cyber offences.
Shadow policing minister Jack Dromey warned: “You are more likely now to be mugged online than in the street”.
The large majority of victims of fraud had been a victim only once (84 per cent), although repeat victimisation (within the same 12 month crime reference period) was more common among victims of bank and credit account fraud (14 per cent) than other types of fraud.
But the widespread use of computers, laptops and smart-phones to facilitate fraud has made the problem more pervasive. It is equivalent to one in 10 adults in the United Kingdom being affected by cyber-crime.
“Over the past year we have implemented new internal procedures on how we record reports of crime”.
The agency has released the stats as part of its annual survey of crime in England and Wales, spanning the year from April 2015 to March 2016. “However, it is also important that those reviewing the ONS’ figures understand that this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg”. The ONS said most of this rise is thought to be owing to improved crime recording by the police.
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He said that unlike burglars and robbers, who tend to target deprived inner-city areas, fraudsters and cyber criminals operated indiscriminately.
