Computer misuse crimes down 9% on last year in England and Wales, says Office of National Statistics

Computer misuse crimes across England and Wales have declined over the past year – with credential theft attacks remaining more or less flat in the pre-COVID reporting period. The Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) recorded a total of 876,000 incidents of computer misuse affecting 743,000 adults across the UK over the …

[VicMortimer]

What do you mean "so called" victimless crimes?

They are crimes without victims. They should not even be crimes. They exist only because some busybody couldn't mind his own business and had to make other people suffer because he didn't like it.

Drug possession is a crime for the same reason gay sex used to be a crime: It seems "icky" to some people. That's NOT a justification for ruining people's lives.

[Version 1.0]

There are also crimeless victims ... every time Microsoft releases a Windows 10 update.

[rcxb]

Drug possession is a crime for the same reason gay sex used to be a crime

Because it destroys brain-cells and make you vastly more likely to commit myriad other crimes?

You sound homophobic.

And how is that a computer misuse crime? Is it your laptop that is in "possession" of the drugs?

[Lee D]

Go tell that to your local drug rehabilitation centre.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Crime Survey of England and Wales

The CSEW might want to check their computers for signs of intrusion.

It appears that miscreants may be manipulating their logs.

[ThatOne]

Computer misuse crimes down 9%

If you stop looking for them, you will find much less of them...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like plod doesn't know how to use computers. Is that not a computer misuse crime in itself?

[Teiwaz]

missed misuses

Sounds like plod doesn't know how to use computers. Is that not a computer misuse crime in itself?

Of course they do, a fair few officers are caught in misuse every year, often using it in stalking.

Personally, I'd count flagrant use of facial recognition as misuse.

[Pete 2]

Agree to disagree

> George Glass, head of threat intel at infosec biz Redscan, opined that these exclusions (from the CSEW data) made the survey of limited use,

However the Office for National Statistics takes a different view. According to them:

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) provides the better indication of the volume of computer misuse offences experienced by the adult population as it captures incidents that go unreported to the police. This can be seen by the large difference in the volume of computer misuse offences between the two sources.

Is this an example of the "two watch" problem - which one is correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

bit of a surprise

A bit of a surprise this.

A good one, if that, but I'd have thought cyber criminals would have been more active during confinment.