Nearly 150 cases of social media and email hacking were reported to Bedfordshire Police last year

For many of us, social media and emails form an essential part of our online activity - especially during lockdown.

Despite this, we are vulnerable to hacking by opportunistic cyber criminals looking to steal valuable information and/or money.

AddictiveTips.com analysed data from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau on 43 police forces/constabularies to establish which areas of England and Wales experienced the most social media and email hacking cases between January – December last year.

And our county came in 35th place, with Bedfordshire Police receiving 140 reported cases of social media and email hacking from January to December 2020. During this period, May was the worst month, with 20 cases.

Whilst August and October had the least number of cases at just seven each.

From those who were targeted, the financial loss equated to £179,900; that is comparable to a personal loss of £1,285 for each individual case.