Cybercrime remained broadly flat in Scotland last year – up by 80 reported crimes, or 1 per cent – but incidents are still ‘significantly above’ pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report.
Scotland’s chief statistician released the Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2025-26 report this week, which showed that there were an estimated 14,200 cyber-crimes recorded by the police in Scotland.
This was similar to the estimated volume for 2024-25, but levels remain significantly above the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20, when there were an estimated 7,710 cybercrimes.
It is estimate that cybercrimes accounted for at least 5 per cent of total recorded crime in 2025-26, including 27 per cent of sexual crimes, 6 per cent of crimes of dishonesty and 3 per cent of non-sexual crimes of violence.
Overall crimes recorded by the police in Scotland increased by 5%, from 299,111 to 315,357 last year, the highest level since 2014-15, though remains down 49% from its peak in 1991.
However, in 2025-26, the clear up rate was 56.7 per cent, up from 56.0 per cent in 2024-25, the second highest clear up rate since comparable records began in 1976 and the highest for a year that wasn’t impacted by Covid.
The figures were published as the Five Eyes security alliance – the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – warned this week of the looming dangers of frontier AI models.
The governments intelligence agencies collectively warned that the rapidly-evolving technology is months away from ‘fundamentally transforming both offensive and defensive cyber capabilities’.