Analysis of Online Fraud in UK's Public Financial Sector

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The Impact of Online Fraud on the Public
Financial Sector of UK as Investigated by UK
Police
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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Organizational Background:......................................................................................................4
Access to Information:...............................................................................................................4
Reason for the chosen topic:......................................................................................................4
Aims and Objectives:.................................................................................................................5
Project Plan................................................................................................................................6
Risk Assessment.........................................................................................................................6
Reference List............................................................................................................................8
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Introduction:
Digitalization has been introduced in many sectors of public service and in this case, the
public financial sector does not lag behind. In the financial or banking sector most of the
work is done on the digital medium and this has increased cyber crimes and frauds cases.
According to an esteemed newspaper it has been indicated that in the first half of 2018, the
customers in UK lost 500 million pounds in scams (The Guardian, 2018). Online fraud can be
defined as loss of money due to online transactions. In other words, fraud that is committed
while using the internet can be termed as online fraud. Under the umbrella of online fraud,
both identity theft and financial fraud are considered. As investigate by the financial moguls
and the UK Police, the rise in online fraud is due to various reasons. The reasons are internet
banking, more traffic on the e-commerce sites and easy access to high speed internet.
There are different kinds of online fraud that are faced by the public banks and other fintech
companies. Different types of online fraud are have been identified by the UK Police
Department. The reasons for online fraud are:
Viruses
Viruses are the most common delivery methods to infiltrate any system without being caught
by the usual firewalls. Viruses can be delivered by the software, open computer network and
email attachments. Viruses have the ability to tap the personal information stored in the
computer systems, and redirect the user to certain websites in order to make them more
vulnerable to online frauds and scams (Laudon and Traver, 2016).
Phishing
When any legitimate party likes the governmental agency or the bank sends an email it can be
termed as phishing. The emails sent ask the user to click on it by asking the user to provide
their personal information. This mail looks like it has been sent by an official website
however; it is a kind of online fraud.
Identify Theft
When personally identifiable information (PII) is stolen by the hackers and the fraudsters it is
known as Identity theft (Anand et al., 2015). The personal information may contain account
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numbers, address, and personal mobile number, ATM pins and so on. The common ways to
steal identity are social engineering, dumpster diving, spoof mails and other kind of scams.
Organizational Background:
Due to rise in online frauds and money laundering the cyber crime department of the UK
Police has undertaken some measures to curb the intensity of it. The UK Police Department is
one of the most efficient departments present in the public services available to the
population. The department was founded in the year of 1800 under the Act of Parliament. UK
Police has a Cyber Crime department which has recently launched #OneReset Campaign in
order to reduce the crime percentage in the online category (Police.uk, 2019). Cyber Aware
as the campaign is called urges people to change the password of email, and internet banking
ids frequently. The Police along with the cyber crime branch has partnered with Metropolitan
Police Cyber Crime Unit and Regional Organized Crime units in order to combat the
situation (Nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk, 2019).
Access to Information:
As the study deals with aspects regarding the financial and banking sector of UK in the public
sector and the cyber crime branch of UK Police it is very important to gather rights to hover
through such critical information. Before starting with the project, the researcher should
contact the cyber crime department of UK Police whether they will give out information on
the impact of online fraud on the financial sector of UK. After drafting a formal request letter
to the cyber crime department and noting done the questions that would be asked, the police
department were ready to give out information on the research topic (Button, 2016). In
addition to this, the researcher had to notify the Police that all the information would be
exclusively used for the research project and will be destroyed after the completion of this
project.
Reason for the chosen topic:
Online fraud is an important topic as it is hampering the growth of UK economy. Due to huge
digitalization in most of the activities of the banking and financial sectors, a huge number of
consumers are falling prey to money laundering and online frauds. The UK Police along with
the National Cyber Crime Unit and other governmental agencies are coming forward to
combat the situation. As states earlier, 500 million pounds were lost by the consumers in UK
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only in the public financial sector and the numbers remain hidden in the private sector and
this is the main reason for choosing this topic for the research project. In this research project
mixed methods will be used for collecting data for the study. Both primary and secondary
data collection methods will be used in this project..
The different points that will be jotted down in the literature review are the different finds of
online frauds that are affecting the financial sector of UK, the impact of online fraud and
cyber crime on the economic growth of the country, ways that are being implemented by the
UK in order to decrease online frauds. The key resources that will help in drafting the
literature review are the journals, annual reports and police websites. While drafting the
literature review a gap in literature review was identified. The literature review did not
discuss the challenges faced by the UK Police in implementing the policies for preventing
cyber crime.
Aims and Objectives:
The aim of the study is to the Impact of Online Fraud on the Public Financial Sector of UK as
Investigated by UK Police.
The objectives of the study are as follows:
 What are the different kinds of online fraud that affects the public financial sector of
UK?
 How does online fraud, money laundering and cyber crimes affects the economic
growth of UK?
 What are the ways implemented by UK Police in order to decrease online fraud in the
financial sector of the country?
 What are the challenges faced by UK Police policies for preventing cyber crime and
online fraud?
Primary data will be collected by emailing the questionnaire to 50 employees of the UK
Police in the Cyber Crime Department and in addition to this, 3 commissioners of National
Cyber Crime Unit will be interviewed in order to collect better insights about the topic.
Secondary data will be collected through the information on the governmental websites and
annual reports of UK Police.
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Project Plan
A project plan is an important component of a research project. It contains the activities or
tasks, milestones, durations and the resources that will be required to finish. The project is
going to start on 20th of January 2015. A project plan for this project is as follows:
Tasks or Resources Time Required Milestone Resources Required
Preparation of
objective and
research topic
2 days 22nd of January 2019 Prior research projects
and class discussions
Drafting topics for
Research proposal
3 days 25th of January 2019 Group discussions
Getting Access to
police in order to
gather information
5 days 30th of January 2019 Formal letter and
permission
Drafting the survey
and interview
questions
3 days 2nd of February 2019 Brain storming and
through knowledge on
the topic
Conducting interview
and survey
2 days 4th of February 2019 Email and formal
meetings
Analysis of the data 4 days 8th of February 2019 Data analysis methods
Drafting
Recommendations
2 days 10th of February 2019 Results obtained from
the data
Drafting Conclusion 2 days 12th of February 2019 Results obtained from
the data
Post Evaluation 1 day 13th of February 2019 Proof Reading
Submission 1 day 14th of February 2019 Nil
Table 1: Project Plan
(Source Created by the learner)
Risk Assessment
Every research or study has some risks and limitations that it will encounter. For proper
completion of the project or the study it is important to identify the risks in the correct time
and form strategies to mitigate it (Azim et al., 2016) It is feasible that the risks get identified
at the earliest so that its impact on the project is the least. A risk register will be formed for
this study in order to identify the risks and form strategies to mitigate it.
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Risk Description Date of Identification
of Risk
Ways to mitigate the
risk
Resources used to
Mitigate the Risk
The first risk that was
identified was
regarding dearth of
official information
from the governmental
bodies
It was identified on the
second week of starting
the research study.
Intensive and effective
research techniques
and skills were used to
mitigate the risk
Official websites of the
public services and
information on the
newspaper sites were
used to gather
authentic information
The second risk was
lack of time in
completion of the
project on time
The risk was identified
on the 1st week of
starting the study
Through proper
allocation of tasks and
proper time
management
techniques the risk was
mitigated
Proper time
management skills
were used.
Table 2: Risk Register
(Source: Created by the learner)
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Reference List
Anand, V., Dacin, M.T. and Murphy, P.R., 2015. The continued need for diversity in fraud
research. Journal of Business Ethics, 131(4), pp.751-755.
Azim, R., Rahman, A.M., Barua, S. and Jahan, I., 2016. Risk Analysis Technique on
Inconsistent Interview Big Data Based on Rough Set Approach. Journal of Data Analysis and
Information Processing, 4(03), p.101.
Button, M., 2016. Security officers and policing: powers, culture and control in the
governance of private space. Routledge.
Laudon, K.C. and Traver, C.G., 2016. E-commerce: business, technology, society.
Nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk. 2019. National Crime Agency - National Cyber Crime Unit.
[online] Available at: http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/about-us/what-we-do/national-
cyber-crime-unit [Accessed 15 Jan. 2019].
Police.uk. 2019. Cyber Aware launches #OneReset campaign - Police.uk. [online] Available
at: https://www.police.uk/news/cyber-aware-launches-onereset-campaign/ [Accessed 15 Jan.
2019].
The Guardian. 2018. UK bank customers lost £500m to scams in first half of 2018. [online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/sep/25/uk-bank-customers-lost-
500m-to-scams-in-first-half-of-2018 [Accessed 15 Jan. 2019].
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