Online bank fraud doubles to £52.5m

The cost of online banking fraud more than doubled last year.

According to figures from payments industry association Apacs, online banking fraud reached £52.5m - an 132 per cent increase on 2007's figure of £22.6m.

According to a spokeswoman for Apacs, the rise can partly be attributed to the increase in people accessing their bank accounts online - and the attention that they attract from phishers.

"Hand in hand with a growing number of users behind the scenes, the fraudsters have woken up to that particular area of interest," she said.

Phishing attacks rose by 71 per cent in the same period, while malware attacks designed to steal banking details have also grown.

"Whilst most people are aware notionally of phishing, there do seem to be a number of people that aren't taking steps to protect themselves from attack," the Apacs spokeswoman told silicon.com.

The value of card-not-present fraud - which covers transactions made by phone, internet or mail order where no physical card is handled by the retailer - also rose year-on-year.

Apacs found card-not-present fraud totalled £328.4m last year - up 13 per cent since 2007's £290.5m - and now makes up more than half of all card fraud in the UK.

The spike in this type of fraud could in part be down to the increase in retailers accepting remote payments, as well as the increase in web shopping, according to Apacs.