Serious Crime Chief warns of Cyber crime threat

SOCA e-crime chief wants closer realtionship with business to combat cyber threat

Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) Head of e-crime, Sharon Lemon, is warning that cyber crime is so widespread it features in nearly every criminal investigation.

The Continuity Forum and City Police just a week ago broadcast the same warnings at the IT security threat briefing held in conjunction with IBM.

Lemon said that computer technology was extensively used by criminals and it was vital that each of the UK's police forces had the ability to tackle it. She said: "It needs more awareness and in the year 2008 e-crime is not a specialist crime anymore, it is something that is spreading out to take in all of organised crime. "These people find each other over the internet, they use encryption to protect their data. It is about making sure that everybody in law enforcement understands that e-crime is part of their daily business."

Cyber crime is a major problem for many organisations, especially in the financial services sector, and cost the UK £2.4bn in 2004 the last time the impact was measured.  “The internet was fuelling a rise in global credit card fraud and that the UK and the US were the targets." warned Lemon Payment clearing industry body Apacs recently released figures showing a 25 per cent rise in card fraud since 2006 to £532.2m. She said: "The thing that is disturbing us the most is the exchange of stolen credit card data and the scale on which it is being traded on the internet and its availability to be bought." The unit would provide leadership and expertise to co-ordinate investigations nationwide and collate reports from forces across the country, as well as offering a central point of contact for reporting cyber crime.

In April 2006, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), which was highly regarded in the private sector, was integrated absorbed into Soca, affecting links with businesses. Recently though, Soca's e-crime unit has been reviewing its contacts with Buisnes, after setting up an information sharing forum for financial services, it will turn its attention to online retailers.  “We have started reviewing our contacts we had many varied contacts in the private sector, although the outcomes were not always as productive as we would like" she said.  “We want to find out what e-crime reduction strategies are in businesses and how we can share more information" she said.  “In NHTCU we had a banking briefing where we met with institutions; now we need information back" she said.  “The banking forum is about information sharing and intelligence powers that enable us to do that."  

The very high credit card limits in the US and the UK data makes the data more valuable and the cards can be used everywhere in the world and Soca has also announced it plans to work more closely with online retailers to share information and best practice and gather intelligence, in a similar way that it says it does with the financial sector via its banking forum.

In September Soca will begin using an information portal to share intelligence and expertise on e-crime with law enforcers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and US on top of its regular meetings with its international counterparts and seconding its officers to learn from agencies across the world.

Lemon said technology played an increasing role in serious crimes handled by Soca - such as people trafficking, drug smuggling and major fraud - that its use was becoming more sophisticated and it was linking up criminals across the globe. She said: "We are talking about virtual groups, for example in the case of credit card fraud from getting the details to releasing the money there may be 12 different skill sets with people collaborating from many different countries and sharing their expertise." Soca has also launched its getsafeonline.org campaign to advise SMEs on how to secure their data and systems. END

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