Police chief: Cyber crime is everywhere

The head of e-crime for the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), Sharon Lemon, has warned e-crime is so widespread it now plays a role in nearly every criminal investigation.

Lemon said that with computers widely used by criminals it was essential for each of the UK's 43 police forces to be able to tackle e-crime.

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."

Lemon warned that the internet was fuelling a rise in global credit card fraud and that the UK and the US were the targets.

Her warning came as payment clearing industry body Apacs released figures showing that £532.2m was lost to card fraud in 2007 - a 25 per cent rise since 2006.

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."

silicon.com's e-Crime Crackdown campaign is calling for a national UK e-crime police unit.

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.

We want to hear your views about this campaign and your experiences of being a victim of cyber crime. Were you happy with the way your case was handled? Make your voice heard by leaving a Reader Comment below or emailing us in confidence at editorial@silicon.com.

"The US and the UK data is more valuable than other data because we have very high credit card limits and the cards can be used everywhere in the world."

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.