A record number of online scams were removed from the internet last year.
The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said the number of frauds – 2.7 million – was four times higher than the amount removed in 2020. The rise was explained as a result of UK cyber experts significantly expanding the country's cyber defences to tackle a broader range of scams, rather than an overall increase in malicious content targeting the British public.
The work carried out by the group’s Active Cyber Defence (ACD) programme has been complimented by reports from the public of suspicious emails, texts and websites – with fake endorsements and extortion emails named as the most common type of scam.
The figures also showed that scammers took advantage of the panic caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, referencing services such as vaccines and vaccine passports. In total, over 1,400 phishing schemes themed around the NHS were taken down last year, more than 10 times as...