Northamptonshire had fourth most cyber crime in UK in 2021, according to cybersecurity experts

Offences included hijackings of social media and denial of service attacks that can cripple websites
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

A new study by cybersecurity firm ESET has found that Northamptonshire Police saw the fourth most reports of cyber crime in the UK in 2021, as compared to other forces.

Assessing ten police forces in total, the study compared the number of cyber crimes reported in 2021 to the population covered by each, revealing the number of cyber crimes per 100,000 people.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

As described in the report, a cyber crime can be anything from hacking, such as illegally accessing people's social media and email accounts, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, bombarding the site with thousands of hits causing it to overload and shut down, as well as releasing computer viruses, malware and spyware.

Unlike other crimes, cyber crime can be committed from nearly anywhere in the world with an internet connectionUnlike other crimes, cyber crime can be committed from nearly anywhere in the world with an internet connection
Unlike other crimes, cyber crime can be committed from nearly anywhere in the world with an internet connection

Coming in at 52.7 cyber crimes per 100,000 people (or 399 total in 2021), Northamptonshire was exceeded by the the biggest site of cyber crime the Metropolitan Police Force in London, with 58.5 (5,258 total), Surrey in second with 53.7 (644) and Kent with 53.5 (999).

However, Northamptonshire did not do so well in terms of reducing the crime year on year. At just a 0.2 percent reduction, the county lagged well behind other areas.

The Metropolitan Police Force saw a decline of 11.8 percent since 2020. Meanwhile Surrey saw an 8.1 percent drop and Kent 9.1. Other notable forces included Thames valley (ranked ninth) with a 14.8 percent drop and Hertfordshire with the biggest decline of 19.4 percent.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

This comes amidst a national decline in cyber crime in 2021 of 2.97 percent since the previous year, according to the study, with the gross national total falling from 2,488 to 2,418 (down by 74 cases).

Northamptonshire Police has said that cyber crime generally comes from outside of the UK and that the number of cases of cyber crime affecting the county could be going underreported.

A spokeswoman said: “These figures are accurate and reflect the vast amount of work we do across the county in encouraging people to report cyber crime to us when it happens.

“The offences most commonly seen are social media takeovers, whereby an individual’s account is hacked and content posted without their knowledge or permission.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“A lot of the cyber crime offences we see are committed by overseas criminals and this trend is reflected across the whole country, not just in Northamptonshire.

“We do a lot of work with the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) to respond to patterns and trends in the cyber crime world and we would encourage people to keep reporting cyber crime to us as we still think a lot of it goes unreported.

“You can do so by calling us on 101 or reporting it online at www.northants.police.uk/ro.”

Anyone who is interested can read the full report on the ESET website.