Urging one e-crime unit

Date: December 16, 2007
Source: ft.com


Businesses are becoming increasingly frustrated at having no centralised organisation to which they can report instances of computer crime, and are calling on the government to form a central police e-crime unit.

David Roberts, chief executive of the Corporate IT Forum, which represents computer users in about half of the FTSE 100 companies, said his members were left with the feeling that the government did not take cybercrime seriously.

"There is no source to go to to report e-crime, other than the local police station - and they have very little understanding of it. It is a significant problem," Mr Roberts said.

He said businesses had previously had a close relationship with the National High Tech Crime Unit. However, since this was merged with the Serious Organised Crime Agency in April 2006, there has been less frequent contact. Soca does not directly take reports of cybercrime, and follows up only larger cases.

"Whereas I fully supported the need for an agency to concentrate on serious and organised crime, the loss of the NHTCU seems to have reduced the focus on 'everyday' computer crime that is relevant to UK business and the general public," said Paul Simmonds, global information security director of ICI.
Original article

---

Add comment  Email to a Friend