"Together, these offenses are similar in magnitude to the existing headline figures covering all other crime survey offenses," said ONS spokesman John Flatley.
He did add, however, that the annual survey did not previously include crimes of this nature.
Commenting on latest Crime Statistics published today, ONS Head of Crime Statistics & Analysis @ONSJohnFlatley said: pic.twitter.com/a0LTIEh8JL
— ONS (@ONS) 21 July 2016
Of the 2 million attacks recorded, 60 percent of them involved computer viruses, while another 600,000 were linked to "unauthorized access to personal information," including hacking.
Infamous online scams, also known as "phishing," where tricksters steal bank and credit card information from their victims, were the most common type of cybercrime reported, with 2.5 million incidents recorded by the ONS.
There were 5.8 million instances of #cybercrime in the last year. What are YOU doing to #protect yourself?
— NE Cyber Crime Unit (@nerccu) July 22, 2016
Everyone has accountability.
In Britain, you are now 10 times more likely to be a victim of fraud and theft, and the probability of being robbed is 20 times lower than that of online fraud.
If cybercrimes are excluded from the figures, a total of 6.3 million criminal incidents took place in the country — a fall of 6 percent. Shadow policing minister Jack Dromey said the figures "shine a light on the true scale of crime in this country."
#CSXNA keynote speaker, @briankrebs, talks cybercrime in UK. Read more here: https://t.co/C4DXTvDp6u #cybersecurity pic.twitter.com/2SzR9TZkag
— ISACA International (@ISACANews) July 19, 2016
"Crime is not falling, crime is changing. You are more likely now to be mugged online than in the street," Dromey said in a statement.
These new figures released by the ONS only highlight even further the issues around fraud, and comes days after the City of London released photos of the top 10 pictures most wanted con artists, who combined, had defrauded people out of US$26 million.
