CHESHIRE has the sixth highest rate of cybercrime in the country, according to a new survey.
A total of 541 cybercrimes were reported in the county last year – giving Cheshire 50.6 cybercrimes per 100,000 people.
The survey by ESET internet security does not give figures for individual towns across the county, but given that there appear to be more offences in higher populated areas, Warrington is likely to be one of the hotspots.
Predictably, London tops the list with 5,258 reported cybercrimes – a rate of 58.5 per 100,000.
But Northamptonshire, with 399 reported offences, has a higher rate than Cheshire, coming fourth in the list with 52.7 cybercrimes per 100,000 population.
Overall, the UK has seen a slight decrease of -2.97 per cent in cybercrime. Cheshire’s rate has fallen by 10.8 per cent.
Cybercrimes categorised as hacking made up 85 per cent of the total reported cybercrimes, a 10 per cent increase year on year. Similar to 2020 hacking social media and email accounts made up over half of the reported cybercrimes in 2021, with 13,522 reported victims or 53.1 per cent. The total reported instances of this cybercrime have fallen by 12 per cent from 15,367 in 2020. Computer viruses came second with slightly over a quarter of the total (28 per cent) at 7,156 down 11.7 per cent from last year and personal hacking comes in third place at 5,25 (19.3 per cent) falling by 4.6 per cent year-on-year.
Hacking is defined as any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer with the requisite intent and knowledge. In the context of social media and email, this includes all forms of individual email accounts and all forms of individual social media both personal and for organisations or companies.
