NESTA Crime Online - University of Brighton Repository

The rise of online and telephone banking have also increased opportunities to obtain
personal data through phishing and vishing. In 2006, 24 million UK adults used remote
banking to access their main current account, and APACS anticipates that by 2014 over
two in three adults will be using remote banking. 71 The majority of these users use only
the Internet to access their main account. The active transit of online banking has
resulted in total losses of £33.5 million in 2006 for online banking fraud from scams such
as phishing and Trojans, an increase of 44 per cent from 2005. 72
However, these figures are expected to rise in the near future with the higher incidence
of phishing attacks and the widespread presence of password stealing malware. In the
UK, APACS reported phishing attacks have grown from fewer than 2,000 in 2005 to
nearly 14,000 in 2006 to nearly 26,000 in 2007. 73
Figure 4
Source: APACS, (2008).
71 APACS (2007), “Payment facts”, at
www.apacs.org.uk/media_centre/documents/070522_FINAL_OnlineBankingFactPack.pdf.
72 APACS, (2007), “Fraud the facts”.
73 BBC News, (2008), “Bank phishing on the rise,” 24 th July. A phishing 'incident' is an incident where the bank
or banking service provider is compelled to react to a phishing problem and records it as such.
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