Nearly £1 million lost to social media hackers in the UK over the past year

International scammers are targeting older people using social media accounts such as Facebook because they are not as savvy at ensuring their security settings are watertight. Fraudbusting UK police have teamed up with Silicon Valley boffins to encourage people to better protect their social media and email accounts after more than 35,000 victim reports were lodged in the UK last year. Date released today shows a sharp rise of social media and email account hacking reported in 2024, with a total of 35,434 reports made to Action Fraud, compared to 22,530 reports made in 2023.

Action Fraud, the national fraud and cybercrime reporting service, has launched a campaign, supported by Facebook owners Meta, to encourage people to take an extra step of online protection by enabling 2-Step Verification for each online account they have. The warning comes as reporting shows nearly £1 million was lost to hackers operating on social media in the past year. The most common motives for social media hacking were either investment fraud, ticket fraud or theft of the targeted account, reporting insights revealed.

Adam Mercer, Deputy Director of Action Fraud, said: “As social media and email account hacking remains the most reported cybercrime this year, this Action Fraud campaign marks a critical issue for everyone who has online accounts. That’s why we’re raising awareness of the ways people can protect themselves online.

“Follow Stop! Think Fraud advice and protect yourself online: enable 2-Step Verification on each online account you have – this will help prove your identity and stop fraudsters trying to steal or access your valuable information. Secure your social media and email accounts by ensuring each password is strong and uses three random words. Remember to never share your passwords with anyone else.”

David Agranovich, security policy director at Meta, added: “Scammers are relentless and continuously evolving their tactics to try and evade detection, which is why we’re constantly working on new ways to keep people safe while keeping bad actors out. Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) is one crucial example of how people can add an extra layer of security to their Meta accounts, to help reduce the risk of scammers accessing your accounts. We’ve also started rolling out facial recognition technology to help people get back into compromised or hacked accounts and are always working on new ways to stay ahead of scammers.”

In the reports made to Action Fraud, there were various different methods of hacking highlighted, including on-platform chain hacking, leaked passwords and phishing.

Chain hacking sees a fraudster gains control of an account and begins to impersonate the legitimate owner, hoodwinking them into revealing authentication codes, including one-time passcodes, that are sent to them via text, that provide access to important accounts such as banks.

The other common method of hacking is when account details are gained via phishing scams, or the use of leaked information used from data breaches, such as leaked passwords. This becomes prevalent as people often use the same password for multiple accounts, so a leaked password from one website can leave many of their online accounts vulnerable to hacking.

Security experts say two-step verification is the best way to keep criminals out of your account – even if they know your password. Turning this on gives important accounts an extra level of protection, especially email and social media accounts.  Email and social media passwords should also be strong and different to all of your other passwords.

A good way to make sure your passwords are ‘long enough and strong enough’ is to combine three random words to create a unique password which is easy to remember.

Report suspicious emails by forwarding it to: [email protected]

Find out how to protect yourself from fraud:

If you’ve lost money or provided your financial information to someone, notify your bank immediately and report it to Action Fraud at or by calling 0300 123 2040. In Scotland, call Police Scotland on 101.