U.K. Advance Fee Scams Increase by Over 600% in Less Than Two Years
New data from the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics shows that this often overlooked scam has grown significantly in interest – likely because it pays off.
If you’re not familiar with this kind of scam, it’s pretty simple: the scammer presents the victim with an opportunity for a grant, a prize – something of value – but requires a small payment up front (often called a processing fee, etc.).
The U.K.’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) regularly surveys U.K. residents to continually understand the current state of all kinds of crime (both traditional and cyber) within the U.K.
From their Estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) for the year ending December 2022, the ONS found that advance fee fraud increased by more than six times – from 60,000 to 454,000 offenses – between the years ending in March 2020 and December 2022. That’s a 654% increase!
The growth in this type of attack provides context around how susceptible an average person is to falling for socially-engineered scams. Given the massive growth in the number of attacks, every organization should assume their employees have been so inundated with digital communication since the pandemic that they need to be retrained to maintain a sense of vigilance (via security awareness training) when interacting with both email and the web.
Free Phishing Security Test
Would your users fall for convincing phishing attacks? Take the first step now and find out before bad actors do. Plus, see how you stack up against your peers with phishing Industry Benchmarks. The Phish-prone percentage is usually higher than you expect and is great ammo to get budget.
Here’s how it works:
- Immediately start your test for up to 100 users (no need to talk to anyone)
- Select from 20+ languages and customize the phishing test template based on your environment
- Choose the landing page your users see after they click
- Show users which red flags they missed, or a 404 page
- Get a PDF emailed to you in 24 hours with your Phish-prone % and charts to share with management
- See how your organization compares to others in your industry
PS: Don’t like to click on redirected buttons? Cut & Paste this link in your browser: https://info.knowbe4.com/phishing-security-test-partner?partnerid=001a000001lWEoJAAW