Action Fraud reveals over 2,500 cyber crimes reported in May 2021

Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, has reported that in May 2021, a total of 2,501 cyber dependent crimes were reported to them (a decrease of 15.4% compared to May 2020). This amounts to 81 reports a day in May, which is an increase of 1.3% compared to April 2021, where the average was 80 reports per day.

The total number of reports between June 2020 and May 2021 has decreased slightly (by 1.8%) compared to the same period in 2019/2020. This is largely due to the significant spike in reporting in April 2020, as the first coronavirus lockdown began.

Education and the construction sectors reported the most cyber incidents in May, which is a continuing trend from April. However, the IT & communications and retail and food sectors were the most prolific organisations reporting live crimes, with each accounting for 26.7% of the total.

Ransomware

There continues to be attacks on educational establishments, mainly ransomware incidents, and these continue to be reported to NCSC.

Action Fraud reported that they had not seen further Covid 19 ransomware incidents and there continues to be fewer cyber attacks referencing the pandemic directly.

Elsewhere, there is a continuation of a trend observed in April 2021 where ransomware reports were dominated by incidents relating to QNAP network-related storage device vulnerabilities: 11 Qlocker, 3 eChOraix, and 1 Cr1pttOr attacks (accounting 26% of all incidents reported).

The most common sector impacted was the education sector, accounting for eight reports (18% from organisations). These included Conti, Phobos, PYSA and Ryuk attacks.

For more information about Action Fraud, visit: Action Fraud.

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Reporting

Report all Fraud and Cybercrime to Action Fraud by calling 0300 123 2040 or online. Forward suspicious emails to report@phishing.gov.uk. Report SMS scams by forwarding the original message to 7726 (spells SPAM on the keypad).

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