Pictured above: (l-r) Joint heads of Challinors' Fraud & Asset Recovery Department, Mark Kenkre and Arun Chauhan

Businesses are being warned to review and update IT system security in the wake of recent statistics which indicate cyber security breaches are the fastest growing criminal activity in the world.

Over 44 percent of UK companies admit to having suffered at least one costly cyber security breach and corporate phishing has clocked-up a 185 percent increase in on-line banking and sales transaction fraud in the first half of last year, according to research by ZDNet and Cyberfraud.

Joint head of the specialist Fraud & Asset Recovery Department at Midlands law firm Challinors, Arun Chauhan, comments: "The statistics are alarming. Experts are predicting that commercial 'click' crime, particularly in sales organisations, has the potential to accelerate out of control, as the threat of new techniques in business identity theft, spoofing software, spyware, hacking, adware, viruses and worms rapidly multiplies.

"There is significant evidence that hackers are now making major headway into penetrating firewalls to access business information from IT networks, whilst company employees download upgrades or supplier specifications," he says.

Both the CBI and the Federation of Small Businesses have described formal government preventative initiatives as 'lamentable', with cyber crime committed from across the globe without a trace of the fraudsters' identity.

Mark Kenkre, who heads Challinors fraud team alongside Arun, adds: "Amid a failure by the courts to secure any conviction under existing measures, the government recently invested £4.3 million in a 'cyber enforcement team' to tackle online fraudsters and internet and email scams, which cost the UK an estimated £3.5 billion each year. However, it is extremely difficult to identify cyber criminals who use the internet and IT technology to operate their scams from anywhere in the world.

"Businesses need to be aware of this growing threat and the increasingly sophisticated techniques used by cyber fraudsters, by reviewing and updating on a regular basis, protective systems in place for the IT networks, and how they screen and monitor online activities." 

Challinors has offices in Birmingham, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, Halesowen and Nottingham. The firm has 24 partners and over 100 fee earners, and is ranked as one of the top legal firms in the West Midlands, being Number 1 in the Chambers UK Directory in a number of categories, including Clinical Negligence.