Greater Manchester residents most susceptible to cybercrime

New analysis of National Fraud & Cyber Crime Reporting Centre data has found Greater Manchester residents are most at risk to cybercrime.

The study by IT provider CloudTech24 found the city-region to have the highest levels of reported cybercrime per 10,000 residents of any area in England and Wales.

Greater Manchester Police received 1,803 cybercrime reports in the last 13 months, which equates to around 6.33 reports per 10,000 people. The most commonly reported types of cybercrime include the hacking of personal information and the hacking of social media or email accounts.

Rounding out the top 5 were Kent, Greater London, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, with between 5.71 and 5.42 cybercrime reports per 10,000 people.

Commenting on the findings, a spokesperson for CloudTech24 said:

“It’s interesting to see how cybercrime can affect everyone, regardless of location, with the top ten areas being very spread out across the country. The data indicates that the most common type of crime is hacking of social media and email, which highlights how important it is for people to be vigilant about online threats, both in their personal lives and at work.”

Social media and email hacks were the most commonly reported cybercrimes, with computer viruses and malware coming in second in most areas.