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Don't refund online fraud victims, Met chief tells banks Don't refund online fraud victims, Met chief tells banks
(about 4 hours later)
Banks should not refund victims of online fraud because it “rewards” them for being lax about internet security, the Metropolitan police commissioner has said. Britain’s most senior police officer has been accused of attempting to shift blame on to victims of online fraud after he suggested consumers should not be refunded by banks if they fail to protect themselves from cybercrime.
Related: Facebook scammers: expert advice on how to stay safe Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said customers who have fallen foul of online fraudsters were being “rewarded for bad behaviour” instead of incentivised to update anti-virus software and improve passwords.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said customers were being “rewarded for bad behaviour” instead of incentivised to update anti-virus software and improve passwords. His comments in the Times come as police brace themselves for an expected surge in overall crime figures when cybercrime estimates are included in official statistics for the first time in July.
Police needed to focus on preventing online thefts, he told the Times.
Discussing how banks could make people more security conscious, Hogan-Howe said: “That’s one thing to consider. If you are continually rewarded for bad behaviour you will probably continue to do it but if the obverse is true you might consider changing behaviour.
“The system is not incentivising you to protect yourself. If someone said to you, ‘If you’ve not updated your software I will give you half back,’ you would do it.”
His comments come as police prepare to include cybercrime estimates in official crime statistics for the first time in July.
Hogan-Howe said that the figures were set to double with the change.
Two in five (44%) UK consumers have been subject to cybercrime in their lifetime, according to a survey released in 2015.
Related: Bank of England governor subject of $6.5m text scamRelated: Bank of England governor subject of $6.5m text scam
However two of every five (42%) do not take the time to change their account passwords after a security compromise or break, the Norton Cybersecurity Insights Report found. But the commissioner’s comments were met with an immediate backlash from consumer groups, including Which?, which described Hogan-Howe’s suggestion as “an astonishingly misjudged proposal”.
“With online fraud increasing, this is an astonishingly misjudged proposal from the Met police commissioner,” Which? executive director Richard Lloyd, said:
“When Which? investigated last year, we found too often that banks were dragging their feet when dealing with fraud. The priority should be for banks to better protect their customers, rather than trying to shift blame on to the victims of fraud.”
Two in five (44%) UK consumers have been subject to cybercrime in their lifetime, according to a survey released in 2015.
However, two of every five (42%) do not take the time to change their account passwords after a security compromise or break, the Norton Cybersecurity Insights report found.
Discussing how banks could make people more security conscious, Hogan-Howe said: “That’s one thing to consider. If you are continually rewarded for bad behaviour you will probably continue to do it but if the obverse is true you might consider changing behaviour.
“The system is not incentivising you to protect yourself. If someone said to you: ‘If you’ve not updated your software I will give you half back,’ you would do it.”
James Daley, of Fairer Finance, a consumer group focused on banks and insurers, told the Times that removing the burden of responsibility to compensate customers would discourage banks from investing in security.
“The stakes are too high for most people – anyone who forgot to update their security could lose their life savings. But for the banks each fraud is only a minute proportion of their profits.”
The home secretary, Theresa May, warned an international policing conference on Wednesday that faceless crime was being conducted over the internet on an “industrial scale”.The home secretary, Theresa May, warned an international policing conference on Wednesday that faceless crime was being conducted over the internet on an “industrial scale”.
But according to the Times, police follow up fewer than one in 100 frauds and there were fewer than 9,000 convictions out of more than three million frauds in 12 months. Related: Facebook scammers: expert advice on how to stay safe
Last year it was revealed that police follow up fewer than one in 100 frauds and there were fewer than 9,000 convictions out of more than 3m frauds in 12 months.
GCHQ estimates that 80% of cybercrime, which is thought to cost £1bn a year, could be prevented by better passwords and regularly updated security software.GCHQ estimates that 80% of cybercrime, which is thought to cost £1bn a year, could be prevented by better passwords and regularly updated security software.