E-crime is on the rise in the UK

Online fraud and e-crime is on the rise in the United Kingdom. Criminals and rogue traders have moved on line to take advantage of the huge economies of scale the internet offers them for stealing money from consumers.

Social media certainly poses one of the greatest threats to consumers. This was highlighted in the Home Office Report on E-crime published July 1013, which identified social networks as one of two key trends in the development of e-crime. Mobile devices being the other trend.

Over half of UK households now use social networking sites. With Facebook alone accounting for two thirds of all UK Internet users (33 million users), and an estimated 10 million UK users on Twitter, it's not surprising that social networks are increasing being targeted by criminals and rogue traders. Which means we all need to take social media security much more seriously.

Criminals and rogues traders will always take the least line of resistance by ruthlessly exploiting, not only the economies of scale these networks offer and large amounts of personal information that users make freely available, but also the implied trust users of social networks have for friends and followers.

However, following us on Twitter, Facebook and/or LinedIn will keep you up-to-date with the latest social media and internet scams.