How much money has the world lost to e-crime so far? … A trillion dollars. That’s the estimated annual cost of e-crime worldwide, according to a recent article, “National online-fraud helpline to launch in April.” Despite the staggering losses attributed to online crime, victims of such crimes—both individuals and businesses—have not had a simple option for reporting them. Hopefully this is about to improve, with the UK’s new Action Fraud helpline, one of the first attempts at streamlining a call-in process for victims to report online crime.

I commend the National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC) for getting the hotline going. The helpline will allow individuals and small businesses to report cyber crime to a central agency, simplifying what would otherwise be a confusing process involving potentially several different government ag encies. A similar effort in the U.S., the Internet Crime Complain Center (IC3), currently allows individuals to file complaints of internet fraud through its website. (more…)