Over £190,000 a day is lost in the UK by those who have fallen victim to cybercrime according to new statistics from the UK police.
Over a third of the victims affected by cybercrime had either the social media or email accounts breached by hackers.
According to Action Fraud, £34.6m was reported to be stolen from victims between April and September of last year which marks a 24 percent increase over the previous six months.
Although the City of London Police, which runs Action Fraud, has warned consumers to use separate passwords for each of their online accounts, 13,357 people in the UK reported cybercrimes over six months.
Easy targets
Of those who reported falling victim to cybercrime, more than 5,000 were hacked via their social media and email accounts costing victims £14.8m.
Commander Karen Baxter explained that cybercriminals have begun to target users' social media accounts to make money and steal their personal details while putting them at risk of identity theft.
Commander Baxter explained to The BBC how consumers can prevent falling victim to hacker's schemes, saying:
"Always be suspicious of unsolicited requests for your personal or financial information and never call numbers or follow links provided in unsolicited texts or emails."
Via The BBC
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