CHESHIRE has one of the highest rates of cybercrime in the UK, according to a new study.

The report from cybersecurity leaders ESET revealed that the county has the sixth highest level of such crimes in the country.

A total of 541 reports were received in total during 2021, a rate of 50.6 incidents per 100,000 residents.

This made it the north’s hotspot for cybercrime – with the only forces which had higher rates than Cheshire Police being the Met, Surrey, Kent, Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire.

Hacking was the most common cybercrime, accounting for 85 per cent of the total reports, followed by viruses, malware and spyware with 28 per cent.

But incidents decreased nationally by 2.97 per cent year on year, with nine out of 10 regions seeing an overall drop.

Jake Moore, cybersecurity specialist at ESET, said: “Knowledge is the key to reducing cybercrime, and with this noticeable shift in offences reported year on year it is starting to suggest that people are becoming more savvy at spotting scams and keeping their wits about them.

“Social media and email hacking however remain the biggest threats across the country, so people need to remember to implement basic security measures to combat hacking with password managers and turning on multi-factor authentication for all online accounts.”