UK Plc feels abandoned to cyber crime onslaught

UK businesses are increasingly being targeted by cyber criminals emboldened by a lack of policing, according to a new survey.

The majority of UK businesses, 65 per cent, have seen an increase in cyber crime attacks, with a quarter having suffered a DDoS attack or had their corporate systems infected by malware, the Corporate IT Forum (Tif) Information Security Service eCrime 2008 Survey has found.

Tif says the survey of 54 of the UK's major corporate IT users casts doubt on whether the newly announced Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), will have the resources to be effective in light of its £7m funding over the next three years.

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

The unit would provide leadership and expertise to co-ordinate investigations nationwide and collate reports from police forces across the country, as well as offering a central point of contact for reporting e-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.

Ollie Ross, director of research at Tif, said that the figures compare unfavourably with the £25m of funding used to start up the National High-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) - the forerunner to PCeU that was rolled into the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in 2006.

Businesses questioned by Tif were so disillusioned by the lack of support from the police that only four per cent of companies said they always report e-crime attacks, with the majority, 57 per cent, saying they "didn't feel the crimes would be investigated properly".

Nearly half of those questioned, 48 per cent, backed calls for "consistent and appropriate penalties for cyber criminals" and 40 per cent indicated they would strongly support "bringing back an NHTCU-like organisation".

Ross told silicon.com: "Organisations have experienced an increase in the amount of e-crime being perpetrated against them as it seems to have become more targeted and professional.

"The new e-crime unit has been set up with a very small amount of money, after 18 months in getting funding, and it does not feel like they have everything in place.

"Our members clearly feel that the risk for the perpetrators of e-crime is not great enough."

The threat of e-crime is impacting on businesses' bottom line, with 68 per cent of chief security officers surveyed saying they now spend up to 40 per cent of their total security budget on tackling e-crime.

The government has said that from spring 2009 PCeU will co-ordinate law enforcement of all online offences and lead national investigations into the most serious e-crime.

It will be supported by the National Fraud Reporting Centre, which will offer a single contact centre for the reporting of all fraud - including online, the National Fraud Strategic Authority and the Soca, which will continue to pursue major international cyber crime investigations such as the recent DarkMarket sting.