INFOSECURITY EUROPE

12 MAY/JUNE 2009

At the Infosecurity Europe show, London, on 30 April 2009, in a

session titled ‘The dynamics of e-crime’, an audience member -

an employee of the police central e-crime unit (PCeu) within the

Metropolitan police service – interrupted the panel to declare that

police are not ignoring the increasing problem of e-crime, but are

under-funded and thus unable to tackle it effectively.

“The only way we can deal with this problem is to find

professionals in the industry to advise and use their expertise”

he said, explaining that the majority of staff at the PCeU are not

trained in intelligence and do not have a technical background.

“The problem is, we can’t afford trained experts. I’m here to

ask you all to please offer your support” he said, addressing

the audience.

The panel, chaired by Nick Selby, VP and research director

of enterprise security for The 451 Group, also included Prof.

Howard Schmidt, ISF; Mike Humphrey, Serious Organised Crime

Agency (SOCA) and James Brokenshire MP, Shadow crime

reduction minister.

“The problem with e-crime” opened Selby “is that the risk

of punishment if caught is very low”. Schmidt expanded by

explaining that e-criminals are so successful because “they’ll steal

£1 from a million people rather that make one big attack. People

are unlikely to report a £1 loss, so the perpetrator gets away

with it”.

MP James Brokenshire put forward his belief that the problem

with e-crime is the forces’ inability to engage the public, and as

such has resulted in a worryingly low level of fear about cyber-

crime. “So many people try to box off e-crime as ‘something that

the technologists can deal with’. We need to break away from

terms like botnets that don’t engage the public. We need to make

them understand. From a political point of view, I’m concerned

that there are seemingly few police offers concentrating on this”.

“There’s a lot the government can do – not just through

enforcement and legislation – but by thinking about the way they

do business, and the way they are seemingly moving towards

centralising data. We need to break away from that” Brokenshire

continued, “not just because of cost and liberty reasons, but

because there are higher risks of breaches because of the wide-

sharing elements of centralisation. If you go down a track not

thinking about the implications of storing a great amount of data

in one place – you’re not doing the public a good service”.

SOCA’s Humphrey declared the inability to size the problem

of e-crime. “How can we know the reality of e-crime? The true

scale of what’s happening? People don’t report viruses or phishing

letters – they just delete them. If we allowed people to report these

things, the volume would be incredible”.

The panel agreed that stopping e-crime is impossible, and

emphasised the importance of educating the public to make them

less likely to fall victim to e-crime. “It’s our responsibility to teach

the next generation about e-security – in the same way that we

teach them about wearing a seatbelt” said Schmidt.

James Brokenshire agreed. “We need to educate children in

schools about cyber safety. Whilst young people are technology

savvy, there is a great sense of naivety about the internet and the

dangers online”.

SOCA’s Humphrey emphasised the importance of analysing

e-crime trends. “We need to put advice out to the public who are

falling victim to e-crime”.

“The online fraud centre needs to be used not just as a tool

to analyse threats and problems but used as law enforcement

to bring these criminals to justice” said Brokenshire. “It needs

to share good practice and educate police centres around the

country about technology crimes. We need to look at how forensics

can be triaged much more effectively” he concluded.

Police central e-crime unit can’t afford to tackle e-crime

The Right Honourable David Blunkett, MP, the former Home Secretary,

has eschewed his original support in the 1990s for national ID cards in

favour of biometric passports.

This interesting twist to Mr Blunkett’s approach to national security

was revealed when he made the keynote speech at the Infosecurity

Europe show in London.

In what appears to be a mellowing of his approach to national

security, the former Home Secretary dismissed suggestions that the

UK has become a surveillance society, noting that the days when a

community leader such as a doctor or vicar could vouch for you when

applying for an official document such as a passport or similar are now

long gone.

As a result, he told the keynote audience, there is a need for citizens

to self-identify themselves and, in this regard, he says, biometric

passports are an ideal solution.

The UK is, he explained, facing a serious security threat in

the shape of possible attacks in the run up to, or during, the

2012 London Olympic Games. In addition, there is a distinct lack

of joined-up government when it comes to collating data for national

security purposes, Blunkett told his audience.

The announcement - made the week before Infosecurity

Europe - by the government to scrap plans for a single email

and internet database is not a good thing, he said. Not from

a national security perspective, but from the point of trying to

protect the multiple databases that citizen’s data is - and will

continue to be - stored upon.

“As already indicated, it is crucial that people understand the

enormity of the potential of identity theft,” he said.

“That is why biometric documentation with properly authenticated

and reliable methods of verification is so crucial,” he added.

“This is still an underestimated area of our life in Britain. Without

that knowledge and appropriate action, not only major events like

the Olympics but our business future could potentially be damaged,”

he concluded.

Rt Hon David Blunkett MP supports biometric passports