Why it matters

What this stops, and what it does not

We would rather tell you this up front than have you find out later.

It does stop the things that arrive as software or a link. A program that starts locking up your files to hold them for ransom. A fake login page pretending to be your bank. A dodgy download that came bundled with something else. A link in a text message that installs something on your phone. Phishing was the most reported crime on that FBI list, and it is squarely the kind of thing this is built for.

It does not stop somebody talking you into it. If a stranger phones up, builds trust over a few weeks and persuades you to wire money or buy cryptocurrency, no software on earth will step in. A lot of the money in those figures went exactly that way. Anyone who tells you their product prevents all of it is selling you something.

Most people reading this already have something on their computer and are fairly sure it is fine. It probably is, for the viruses it already knows about. The gap is everything new — and new is where the growth in those numbers is coming from.

Why the people over 60 matter here

Older adults made one in five of the complaints but lost more than a third of the money. If you have a parent living on their own with a computer nobody looks after, that is the single most useful place to put this. It is also why our plans let you cover devices at another address.