Microsoft opens new cybercrime centre

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The growth in concern about cybercrime across the world has prompted Microsoft to open a centre dedicated to fighting against this scourge.

Whether it is phishing, trojans, botnets or other means of getting hold of secure data, the reality is that the criminals will always be trying to get one step ahead of the experts, who in turn will be looking for quick solutions to every emerging threat.

Microsoft is seeking to spearhead this battle at headquarters in Redmond, Washington, where the new centre will not just rely on the company's own expertise, but share this with that from across the industry.

Associate general counsel of the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit David Finn remarked: "The Microsoft Cybercrime Center is where our experts come together with customers and partners to focus on one thing: keeping people safe online.

"By combining sophisticated tools and technology with the right skills and new perspectives, we can make the internet safer for everyone."

There will be over 100 people from technical experts to lawyers working at the centre, which will have two satellite offices elsewhere in the US and others around the world, in locations such as Beijing, Brussels, Dublin, Gurgaon in India, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney.

Among the innovations at the centre will be a new investigative capacity to trace cybercrime around the world, while the facility will also include a secure location for third-party partners to send their cyber security experts to work in collaboration with their counterparts at Microsoft in collaborative efforts to help the whole technology sector. The international offices around the world will also have a role in spotting threats developing in real time, as well as sharing best practice and new innovations with the rest of the sector across the globe.

Executive director of the Interpol Global Complex for Innovation Noboru Nakatani commented: "In the fight against cybercrime, the public sector significantly benefits from private sector expertise, such as provided by Microsoft.

"The security community needs to build on its coordinated responses to keep pace with today’s cybercriminals. The Microsoft Cybercrime Center will be an important hub in accomplishing that task more effectively and proactively."

In setting up the centre, Microsoft has noted just how big the issue is. Across the world last year, around 50 per cent of adults were the victims of cybercrime, while 20 per cent of small and medium enterprises are targeted. It estimated the cost of this to the global economy is $500 billion (£311 billion) a year.

Public and private sector organisations all over the world may indeed benefit from this development, but that does not mean cyber criminals will take the Microsoft initiative lying down. It would be presumptuous for firms to imagine that the battle against cybercrime will ever be completely won, no matter how many resources the technology sector dedicates to the fight. Moreover, there may be some enterprises who do more than others to adopt the best systems and practices, meaning many companies will remain less able than others to deal with attacks.

Some recent research has identified how such a situation may come about. Gartner's 2013 Global Risk Management Strategy recently indicated that the fear of cyber crime has prompted what it believes will be a counterproductive move away from tried and trusted means of protecting data like enterprise risk management and risk-based information security.

The number of firms using the first of these two methods dropped from 12 per cent to six per cent in the last year among the 555 firms in the UK, US, Canada and Germany who took part in the survey. Instead, they are moving towards more technical security methods, which Garner expects will prompt a false sense of security. The company said it expects firms moving in this direction will suffer for it and respond by moving back to risk-based methods.

One thing companies can do when they seek to convert their data to electronic form is use off-site remote hosting in data centres, which can benefit from having their own in-house expertise that will be well acquainted with the best and latest security methods. Indeed, these may find their capacity to keep the cyber criminals at bay is greatly enhanced by the Microsoft initiative and other new developments.

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