The top UK Government branded attacks that have been reported to the official the National Cyber Security Centre’s Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS) that have resulted in takedowns are, the NCSC reports:
1) National Health Service (NHS)
2) TV Licensing
3) HM Revenue & Customs
4) Gov.uk
5) DVLA; and
6) Ofgem.
In 2022, the NCSC says, it saw scammers exploit the rising cost of living with Ofgem energy bill support scams and HMRC tax rebate scams, while scammers continued to take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to attempt PCR test scams.
The NCSC encourages the public to forward suspect emails to its Suspicious Email Reporting Service at report@phishing.gov.uk, while suspicious texts should be forwarded to 7726. SERS received 6.4 million reports during 2022, with 67,300 scam URLs removed as a result. This brings the total number of reports to SERS since its launch in 2020 to 15.8m, with 198,500 takedowns.
The NCSC is also urging people to follow its Cyber Aware advice to protect their online accounts from scammers seeking to steal personal details and sensitive information. Specifically, people should set up two-step verification and use three random words passwords to prevent cyber criminals gaining access to email accounts.
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