- Crime pays - 1st July 2025
- Disabling protests - 30th June 2025
- A good storybook - 30th June 2025
Experts in Wales as well as globally have warned about the changing nature of crime today, after high-street firms were hit by cyber attacks.
One told The Eye: “What has happened to M and S and the Co Op is just the tip of the iceberg. We are struggling to keep up with how these criminal gangs are evolving. It’s not just breaking into cars any more!”.
These cyber hits, often including ransom demands, come alongside an increasing number of online scams which attempt to extort money out of unsuspecting victims.
In relation to the Marks & Spencer (M&S) attack, the hacker sent a message declaring menacingly: “We have marched the ways from China all the way to the UK and have mercilessly raped your company and encrypted all the servers.
“The dragon wants to speak to you so please head over to [our darknet website].”
We have been targeted as well as many other individuals and giant companies, although they have been unsuccessful in the case of The Eye.
The price for the M&S infiltration alone was millions – the retailer says the disruptions will cost it some £300 million ($405 million).
These breaches, which also hit the Co Op supermarket chain, were more than just costly computer hacks.
They are worrying examples of how crime is now beyond simple street thuggery and car crime, becoming a global service economy where anyone with cryptocurrency can buy the tools to paralyse a multinational corporation.
One of the chief suspects in the attacks on some of the UK’s high street names for investigators is the hacker collective ‘Scattered Spider’, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Scattered Spider is not a traditional, hierarchical mafia but a fluid network of young hackers who may never meet in person, yet can co-ordinate devastating attacks across continents.
They are thought to have used DragonForce, a ransomware-as-a-service platform that gives criminals the software to carry out attacks in which they encrypt the victim’s data or otherwise block their access to computer systems until a ransom is paid.
It is, of course, unknown exactly how much money is involved, but all estimates say it is a lot.
The low end of the range comes from tallies of reported crimes by law enforcement agencies.
The FBI said it received reports of direct losses of $16.6 billion in 2024, a 33 per cent increase on 2023. If unreported losses and the wider economic costs are included, the numbers are even more breath-taking. The European Commission (EC) reckons that the worldwide costs of cybercrime were €5.5 trillion ($6.5 trillion) in 2021.
But this is not the only source of concern for crimefighters – the exponential growth in internet frauds is also a major worry, with the tricks that are used become more and more sophisticated.
The days of patently false emails from supposed Nigerian princes are long gone, and now online fraudsters have become rich and powerful enough to corrupt entire governments, turning whole countries into the cyber-scam equivalent of narco-states.
The global proceeds of online fraud are more than $500 billion a year, estimates Martin Purbrick, an expert in Chinese organised crime who was a police officer in Hong Kong (HK) for 11 years, and one study has found that 42 per cent of UK adults have been targeted by an internet scam in the last 12 months.
The FBI report that losses from investment scams in America increased by 22 per cent in 2023 to more than $12.5 billion.
That is far more than the cost of burglary or car theft, and is in all likelihood a severe underestimate, since many victims do not file police reports owing to feelings of shame or denial.
The actual amount stolen from Americans each year is probably around $50 billion, estimates Erin West, a former prosecutor.
She thinks around one in 100 Americans falls victim to a scam annually. Many are young and tech-savvy; police officers, FBI agents, financial advisers and psychologists have all been taken in.
Unlike illegal drugs, scams cannot be seized by police or customs, so with nothing more than a phone line and internet connection, scammers can turn anyone into a potential victim.
Young adults aged 18-24 were the ones most targeted last year, with 55 per cent approached by scammers in 12 months and 60 per cent either experiencing financial loss themselves or knowing someone who has.
Families in Wales have suffered the most significant increase in fake parcel delivery texts, with 40 per cent of people reporting a higher risk of these scams over 2024 which is 11 per cent above the UK average.
Online tricks concerning tax payments are also becoming more prevalent.
The Welsh Government (WG) is very aware of this, offering advice such as: “How to avoid and report tax scams and keep your personal information safe when communicating with us at the Welsh Revenue Authority (WRA)”.
As our gmail address on The Eye is public, we have to counter an almost daily barrage of scams, between interesting nuggets of information from whistleblowers.
The scammers today often lure in unsuspecting victims by taking a logo from the internet which contains an official-looking demand for money.
This is known as ‘pig-butchering’ although it comes in many different forms.
Victims are identified on social media or dating apps and then ‘fattened up’ by a scammer who spends weeks or months building trust by posing as a potential friend, business partner or romantic interest.
Scammers then use this trust to ‘slaughter’ the pig by suggesting fake investment opportunities and absconding with the money.
This is just one of the scam messages we received, where the fraudsters were asking for £796.49 (we NEVER use PayPal): “Dear, Your help is needed to verify the information related to your PayPal account. Thank you for your cooperation! Best Regards,”
These may seem ridiculous, especially if no name is attached, but THOUSANDS of them are sent out, so if only ONE hapless individual takes the bait, it is worthwhile. Further pieces of nonsense in the past have been:
Attention Beneficiary
My name is Bernard Lauwers, Finance Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Note that you have received this payment notice because you have been confirmed a legal beneficiary of the said compensation fund worth $10.7 million dollars from the United Nations Compensation Commission in Conjunction with the International Monetary Fund….
Hence, you are advised to acknowledge receipt of this email as soon as received to enable us to confirm that your email address is still active before we can furnish you with further details of your payment today.
Best Regards,
Mr. Bernard Lauwers
Finance Director of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF)(601)
Address: 700 19th Street, N.W, Washington, D.C. 20431, USA
A different one supposedly came from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) (which we don’t bank with anyway), and declared:
| Dear customer,
To protect your security, we`ve now decided to stop any further spending on your RBS Debit Card. This is due to a recent changes on your account persoanl information. (eg: Billing address, Phone number) To ensure its real you Banking or Shopping Online. We need to verify your account personal information. This will help us in safeguarding your account and financial assets from unauthorized use at no cost. Sincerely, Royal Bank of Scotland Security Team |
As this ludicrous information shows, the scams have become more sophisticated, so rather than demanding money straight out some tricksters will try to entice you in.
There is the one where a ‘relative’ will ask if you can help them. This appears perfectly innocent, but if you answer positively you will then be confronted by a message that he or she can’t get to the shops, and asks if you can buy a gift token for a dying friend and send it to them, so you may feel heartless if you don’t do this, but it is, of course, a scam.
What they then do is take the token to the designated supplier, and get a refund in cash which they then pocket.
Or there’s the one offering a ‘receipt’ for goods that were never ordered, and giving a phone number for queries. You are then tempted in and might give your bank details, but to this one we asked: “Are you happy being a scammer?!”.
We are certainly not happy receiving them, but unfortunately they are on the increase, and those battling against cyber crime know this only to well…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s astonishing decades long award-winning career in journalism (when online scams were non-existent in the early days), as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – how during 23 years with the BBC, and a 41 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for Phil covering elections was always paramount, and interviews with politicians vital, so he is concerned by new research which shows that faith in the democratic process is on the floor.
