The spread of cyber-fraud has created a surge in economic crime against British companies, with more than half of all firms braced for an online attack, according to new research.
Fifty-one percent of UK organisations have been the victim of economic crimes of any form in the past two years, up from 44pc in 2014. British firms are above the global average of 36pc of companies experiencing crime, research by PwC suggested.
Four in ten of these victims reported an online incident such as data theft or malware, which can seize a company’s computer systems and hold them to ransom.
More than half of the firms surveyed expect to become the victim of cybercrime in the next two years, yet a third reported that they have no plan to address a cyber incident and just 12pc said they were confident that the police and other authorities could deal with cybercrime.
“Hackers are now more ambitious than ever. Their aim goes beyond targeting financial information to include a company’s ‘crown jewels’ – customer data and intellectual property information, the loss of which, can bring down an entire business,” said Mark Anderson, global corporate intelligence leader at PwC.
“The threat of cybercrime is now a board level risk issue, but not enough UK companies treat it that way.”
It came as the FBI warned of a sharp rise in “business email crime”. Hackers pretend to be chief executives and email company employees asking them to move funds to an offshore account. The criminals then steal the money before the company realises what has happened.
The FBI said the average loss is $120,000 but some firms have been conned out of $90m.
The Office for National Statistics included cyber offences in its crime data for the first time in October, helping to fuel a 107pc increase in recorded crime. More than 5m incidents of cyber crime and fraud were detected in the past year.
The Metropolitan Police launched its own cyber fraud squad named Falcon in 2014 to handle the glut of online crime in London.
While six in ten frauds against British companies are committed by external perpetrators, nearly a third come from within the company affected. PwC’s survey of more than 1,000 organisations of all sizes highlighted a rise in senior executives carrying out the crime, although middle managers are still the most likely suspects, accounting for 36pc of internal fraud.
One in 20 firms said they had been asked to pay a bribe in the last two years, although almost all companies worldwide have measures in place to tackle bribery and corruption.
Half of companies said they had increased spending on compliance in the past two years, rising to 68pc for financial services companies as a raft of new rules and regulations come into force.
