Almost two thirds of ecommerce retailers were hacked by cyber criminals last year and one in four suffered some form of cyber crime.
Hacking by an outside third party represented the biggest online crime problem overall for retailers because almost 90 per cent of those affected described the threat posed by outside hackers as 'critical.'
Retailers said said they also suffered from computer viruses, malware or spyware (80 per cent), 'denial of service' attacks (50 per cent), and 'site scraping' where criminals set up a site masquerading as the retailer's own, for which the British Retail Consortium, who produced the survey, did not provide figures.
'The majority of retailers said cyber attacks posed a 'critical threat' their business in 2012-13. Hacking and denial of service were the most critical threats. However, in terms of volume, the most common attacks were from computer viruses and malware,' the BRC's Retail Crime Survey report said.
The organisation said the total cost of retail crime on and offline was £511, an increase of 166 per cent on five years ago. The report said 80 per cent of retailers reported an increase in fraud which accounted for 41 per cent of the total cost of crime.
Helen Dickinson, director general of the BRC, said: 'Last year we also saw a dramatic increase in fraud and e-crime with eight in ten retailers reporting a rise in fraud and the majority of retailers telling us that cyber-attacks pose a critical threat to their business. Combined with the increase in organised theft, this means that retailers are facing an increasingly sophisticated criminal.'
She added: 'We want to work closely with Police and Crime Commissioners and the new National Crime Agency and National Cyber Crime Unit to fight this serious crime, from fraud, to theft, to cyber-attacks. Our engagement has been positive so far, but it is still early days and it is important that they implement measures such as single points of contact and create dedicated business crime strategies.'
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