Interpol counted 65,929 victims behind this summer's arrests

Interpol published the totals on 22 October, and the arrest figure is not the interesting one. The victim count is. Investigators identified 65,929 people and businesses who had lost money, and traced more than 385 million dollars in losses, of which about 105 million has been recovered.

The operation ran from 29 June to 31 August across 21 countries, with intelligence supplied beforehand by Kaspersky, Group-IB, Fortinet and Team Cymru. In Uganda police dismantled two cross-border fraud rings and arrested 365 people over investment and pension scams. In Angola nine arrests at illegal cryptocurrency mining sites came with more than 2,000 mining devices seized. And in Nigeria a single person was arrested for running a phishing and business email compromise operation that had harvested around 2.1 million email addresses. "Cybercrime networks operate without regard for borders, exploiting technology to target victims on an unprecedented scale," said Neal Jetton, Interpol's director of cybercrime.

Operations like this one are worth reading for what they say about volume rather than for the arrests. One person collected 2.1 million addresses. The investment pitch that lands in your inbox next month was not written for you personally; it went to a list, and somebody on that list will reply. The defence has not changed and stays irritatingly plain: no genuine investment, pension or refund arrives by unsolicited message, and the moment a conversation turns urgent, you are being worked.

Tendvane cannot stop a message reaching you. What it can do is check what came home with it, and its Safety check lists the programs and startup entries that have installed themselves on your PC.