Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
A record number of scams were removed from the internet in 2021 thanks to the Active Cyber Defence programme.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NSCS) has revealed that more than 2.7 million scam campaigns were stamped out in 2021, nearly four times more than in 2020.
The rise reflects the expansion of NCSC services to take down additional malicious online content, such as fake celebrity endorsement scams, rather than an increase in scams overall. The work has been complemented by reports from the public of suspicious emails, texts and websites, which have enabled the NCSC to remove even more scams.
The celebrity scams and bogus extortion emails were the most commonly removed but other themes used by scammers included NHS vaccines and vaccine passports and even in one instance impersonating the CEO of the NCSC Lindy Cameron.
The findings represent some of the highlights in 2021 of the NCSC’s Active Cyber Defence programme, a pioneering initiative which prevents millions of cyber attacks from reaching UK citizens, critical infrastructure providers and organisations every year.
Lindy Cameron, CEO of the NCSC said “The latest ACD figures shine a light on how the NCSC has responded to emerging cyber threat trends and security issues to keep the UK safe at scale.”
“We know that scammers will go to great lengths and indeed my name has been used to try and trick people, but as we continue to expand our defences we can see the tangible impact this is having.”
Dr Ian Levy, NCSC Technical Director, said “Over the past five years, our Active Cyber Defence (ACD) programme has been central to preventing millions of cyber attacks from causing harm to the UK.”
“The highlights shared today evidence some of the crucial interventions we made last year to take down online threats, deter attackers and improve our collective cyber resilience. We will publish the full annual report on our website in due course.”
“As ACD continues to grow and innovate, we strongly encourage the private sector to work even more closely with us to enhance the effectiveness of our services to take down and block malicious websites.”
The NCSC’s removed more than 1,400 NHS-themed phishing campaigns last year – an 11-fold increase on 2020 – as scammers tried to trick people with fake messages about the vaccine rollout and certificates.
Meanwhile, in one scam taken down, a scammer claiming to be NCSC CEO Lindy Cameron sent an email informing the recipient that the NCSC had stopped £5 million of their money being stolen and to get the funds back they were required to reply with personal information.
The overall increase in scam removals was largely due to the Takedown Service expanding to take down additional types of malicious online content over a prolonged period of time.
