2023 was a monumental year for the UK's fraud and cyber landscape.
It is safe to say that AI well and truly embedded itself into our everyday lives, with legislative frameworks internationally attempting to keep up with the fast-paced developments, and its use becoming more prominent in cyber security – in both positive and negative ways. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has entered into its seventh year and continues to endeavour to make the UK the safest place to live and work online - whilst businesses build their cyber resilience, sophisticated cyber-attacks increase as threat actors use advances in technology to advance ransomware attacks and data breaches. Although we have seen great progress in areas of regulation in the EU and, to some extent, the UK, it is clear that 2024 will be a busy year for us and our clients in navigating developments.
As economic tensions continue so does financial crime and fraudulent activity. Whilst the UK Finance 2023 half year fraud update shows that figures fell by 2% in the first six months of 2023, with a total of £580million stolen, we are continuing to see a rise in advanced targeting via social engineering and AI. The targeting spans across individuals and companies alike, with finance and insurance remaining the most targeted industry sectors. It is of course not only the financial impact of fraud that is a concern, but the social and personal cost to victims. It is clear that the government's new Fraud Strategy, which intends to reduce fraud by 10% on 2019 levels by December 2024, is desperately needed. To that end, it is promising news to see the introduction of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, albeit now imposing an onus on businesses to ensure reasonable fraud prevention procedures are in place.
Before we embark on this year's journey of regulations and resilience, we look back on a handful of the key developments that the fraud and cyber security landscape has undergone in 2023
