The Home Office is planning to inject £63m into police budgets to combat cybercrime, which, according to some estimates, has affected 59 per cent of UK consumers.
Home Secretary Theresa May revealed the funding boost after attending an informal G6 meeting, which considered ways of tackling cyber security with interior ministers from France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland.
She said: “I noted that the Government had allocated £650m to fund national cyber-security, including £63m on cybercrime.”
A statement from the Home Office said: “This proposed new funding will be used to develop the UK’s overall response to cybercrime. The Government is determined to build an effective law enforcement response to the cyber crime threat building upon the existing expertise within SOCA and the Met Police Central e-Crime Unit.
Last summer police have arrested 19 people over the so-called “Zeus” fraud, in which £6m was stolen from UK bank accounts over a three month period.
And while much of the crime on the Internet concerns identity theft, some users are victims of major scams too, especially on dating sites.
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