- In the UK: gaming, online streaming and social media sites, travel and retail/ecommerce companies are the worst hit by fraudsters.
- Experts also find that the metaverse is already fast becoming a fertile breeding ground for cybercrime and newly defined, ‘Master Fraudsters’.
A new report released today, The 2022 State of Fraud and Account Security, is warning UK commerce that it faces its most challenging year ever. Experts from the Arkose Labs Network, an online fraud deterrence platform, analysed over 150 billion transaction requests across 254 countries and territories in 2021 over 12 months to discover that there has been an 85% increase in login attacks and fake consumer account creation at businesses. Alongside this, it identified that a quarter (one in four) of new online accounts created were fake. A further 21% of all traffic was confirmed as a fraudulent cyber attack.
“From the earliest days of online information to the rapid evolution of today’s metaverses, the internet has come a long way. However, this latest data shows that it is more under attack than ever before,” said Arkose Labs Founder and CEO Kevin Gosschalk.
He continued: “Your digital identity is a currency for fraudsters and wherever there is online commerce, cybercriminals are quick to identify vulnerabilities.”
The new report focused on a number of key themes:
The Worst Attacked Sectors in the UK
The latest research took a deep dive into UK business specifically to understand which sectors were the most attacked by online criminals. The ongoing popularity of online gaming puts it top of the list for fraudsters with almost half (46%) of all the attacks in the UK, as seen by Arkose Labs. Digital media companies (social networks and online streaming platforms) are also high value targets and represent a third of all attacks, seeing an 88% increase since 2020. Across all sectors including ecommerce/retail, travel, gaming, financial services, one in every four new online accounts created were fake throughout 2021.
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