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Articles for Category Tag - Crime

Internet Danger Websites with Scam Ads and Malware

Ofcom Warn UK People to Watch for Scammers Impersonating the Regulator

25th September, 2025 (4 Comments)

The UK telecoms and media regulator, Ofcom, has warned consumers that fraudsters are attempting to impersonate them. In short, some people have received calls from scammers, which claim that services (e.g. broadband, phone etc.) have been fraudulently taken out in their name, when this is not the case.

Beware Email Scams Seeking Feedback on the UK’s Emergency Alerts Test

16th September, 2025 (2 Comments)

The recent nationwide mobile test of the UK’s new Emergency Alerts service has, perhaps inevitably, been followed by a new wave of email phishing scams and spams over the past week. This attempts to impersonate the government by claiming to seek feedback from recipients on whether or not they received the alert.

Scam Alert UK Finger on Computer Keyboard Warning

O2 UK Warns of New Scam Texts as Network Blocks 600 Million Messages

4th September, 2025 (2 Comments)

Mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today revealed that they’ve blocked more than 600 million scam text messages from reaching their customers phones so far in 2025 (more than double the number in 2023 and 2024 combined). But the operator warns that they’ve seen a “significant rise” in gambling, recruitment and car finance scam texts.

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Openreach Trial Panic Alarms for UK Broadband Engineers as Abuse Rises

2nd August, 2025 (18 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has begun to trial panic alarms for their staff after revealing that UK engineers reported 450 incidents of abuse and assault in the year to the end of March 2025, which is up 8% in the last year and represents a shocking 40% increase when compared with 2022-23. Other providers have seen a similar trend.

Ofcom UK to Restrict Number Spoofing to Tackle Mobile Scam Calls from Abroad

21st July, 2025 (15 Comments)

The UK internet content and telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today proposed changes that will require phone providers to withhold the Caller ID (CLI) of calls that appear to come from a UK mobile roaming abroad unless they can verify its validity. The goal is to tackle scam calls by cracking down on number “spoofing“.

Cornwall UK Police Warn Teenagers NOT to Climb Mobile Masts – Obviously

7th July, 2025 (2 Comments)

The Falmouth and Helston Police (FHP) in Cornwall yesterday had to deal with another contender for the Darwin Awards after they warned that several teenagers had been spotted scaling to the top of a mobile network mast at Breageside, Porthleven – nearly becoming an example of natural selection at work.

UK Government Confirms Europe-first Ban on SIM Farms

24th April, 2025 (18 Comments)

The UK government has today confirmed its intent to ban SIM Farms (both possession and supply) some 6 months after the new Crime and Policing Bill (CPB) receives Royal Assent. The move is designed to better protect the public from fraudsters and scammers who also use the devices for criminal purposes (e.g. sending scam/spam messages and calls to mobile users).

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Ofcom Confirm Ban of Global Titles to Tackle Abuse of UK Mobile Networks

22nd April, 2025 (3 Comments)

The national telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today confirmed that it will ban UK phone operators from leasing Global Titles (GTs) – numbers like +44 (for the United Kingdom) that support mobile services – to third parties. Sadly, such leasing can be misused to try and intercept messages and calls, disrupt the operation of networks and track the location of users of other networks.

Home Phone and UK Broadband VoIP Services

Ofcom UK Probe Primo Dialler Over Possible Misuse of Phone Numbers

14th April, 2025 (3 Comments)

The UK telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, has today opened a new investigation into call centre solutions’ provider Primo Dialler, which will examine “concerns that numbers sub-allocated to [the company] are/were being misused, including to facilitate scams.”

Man Arrested for Knocking Out Openreach’s Broadband in Falmouth UPDATE

8th April, 2025 (5 Comments)

The Devon & Cornwall Police (DCP) in England have arrested a man in his 30s on suspicion of causing criminal damage to Openreach’s broadband network in the town of Falmouth over the weekend. The incident knocked out local internet connectivity to around 100 premises (inc. many local businesses) and could cost up to £100,000 to repair.

Network map of United Kingdom. Country digital connections map. Technology, internet, network, telecommunication concept. Vector illustration.

Gov Sets Out More Details of New UK Cyber Security and Resilience Bill

2nd April, 2025 (2 Comments)

The UK government has set out the scope and ambition for their new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill (CSRB), which aims to respond to increasing attacks from “cyber criminals and state actors” by toughening and expanding the existing rules for broadband, mobile, managed service providers, data centres and even their suppliers.

Three UK Boosts Scam Protection via New Bitdefender Partnership

24th March, 2025 (2 Comments)

Mobile operator Three UK has today announced a new partnership with global network security firm Bitdefender, which has resulted in the launch of a new ‘Three Device Security’ service – expressed as being a “powerful new subscription service designed to safeguard customers against fraud, phishing, and malware attacks“.

O2 UK’s AI Flags 50 Million Suspected SPAM and Scam Calls a Month

18th March, 2025 (5 Comments)

Readers may recall that mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) integrated Hiya’s new AI-powered scam detection service (‘Call Defence’) to help combat fraud and nuisance calls last November 2024 (here). Since then, more than 150 million “suspected” scam and spam calls have been flagged by the new technology, recently rising to more than 50m per month.

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Cable Thieves Knock Out Broadband in St Neots for a Second Time UPDATE2

17th March, 2025 (10 Comments)

Criminals have, for the second time in the space of around one month (here), today disrupted Openreach’s broadband services in the Cambridgeshire (England) town of St Neots by attempting to steal an unspecified amount of the UK network operator’s local copper telecoms cable.

Hiya Finds 32 Percent of Unknown UK Calls are SPAM in Q4 2024

25th February, 2025 (5 Comments)

The Q4 2024 Global Call Threat Report from Hiya, which works with broadband ISPs and mobile operators (BT, EE, O2, Virgin Media etc.) to help tackle SPAM and fraud calls, has revealed that UK residents received 4 spam calls per person each month (unchanged from Q3) and the percentage of unknown calls that are spam hit 32% (up from 28%).

Broadband Outage in St Neots After Thieves Steal Openreach Cable

18th February, 2025 (12 Comments)

Broadband, phone and Ethernet services in the Cambridgeshire (England) town of St Neots have been disrupted after criminals ripped up and stole around 500 metres worth of Openreach’s (BT) copper telecoms cable, which has impacted four of their fibre street cabinets in the area – serving premises with around 380 customers.

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Comms Council UK and NTS to Help Crackdown on Telephone Fraud

29th January, 2025 (0 Comments)

The Comms Council UK, which represents the UK’s national Unified Communications and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) phone industry, has today announced a new “joint information sharing initiative” with National Trading Standards (NTS) that aims to help “crack down on telephone fraud“.