Despite greater awareness, criminals engaged in online, email and telephone scams continue to steal large sums of money from unsuspecting individuals and businesses.
This week the PSNI issued a warning about an upsurge in scams where emails are being hacked, which has led to the loss of more than £769,000 during last month alone.
This is a shocking figure and shows the scale of the problem facing the police, financial institutions and members of the public, who have been duped out of their hard earned money.
In the cases outlined by the police, criminals managed to compromise the email accounts of a large organisation, which lost over £400,000 while a healthcare provider was asked to change bank account details and consequently paid £140,000 into a fraudulent account.
Another case involved the interception of a charitable organisation's emails which resulted in €59,000 being paid into a fraudulent account.
It is not just businesses or large enterprises that are being targeted. One man was tricked out of £20,000 after being advised to make a payment to an online investment company where the bank details had been changed.
By any standard, these are significant financial losses and it is galling to think that unscrupulous criminals sitting in a room somewhere can steal large sums of money using little more than a computer screen and a keyboard.
Although this problem is widely recognised, we know the thieves are using ever more sophisticated schemes and methods to separate people from their cash.
The telephone scam will be one that many people are familiar with - unsolicited calls from people claiming to represent large IT companies, financial institutions or even HMRC.
Their aim is to extract crucial information that allows the criminals to access emails or bank accounts, often from elderly people who are particularly vulnerable.
However, the scammers will target people of all ages and everyone should be alert to the criminals and never provide personal or financial details over the phone, no matter how convincing the person is on the other end of the line.
People and businesses must do their best to safeguard their money but in this era of online banking, accounts should not only have the highest security but it should be easier for the victims of fraud to have their funds restored.
