Cybercrime fight hampered

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=features&subclass=techno&category=industry%20news&story_id=117073&y=2001&m=12

By Wendy Levy

Australia's police forces are looking to the private sector to help
them in their fight with cybercrime, but so far the response has been
patchy, according to the national Police Commissioners' Electronic
Crimes Steering Committee.

The chairman of the committee (and head of the WA Police),
Commissioner Barry Matthews, said there had been an apparent lack of
interest in the private sector.

People discussed the latest virus or cybercrime theories, but were
reluctant to protect their systems until they were attacked, he said.

The banking sector had shown the greatest interest because there was
recognition of potential vulnerabilities, but the steering committee
had had limited success in getting prominent company heads together to
discuss the issues and were now targeting smaller groups through
presentations at Rotary, management seminars and so on.

An exception was the IT World Congress, to be held in Adelaide in
February, whose organisers had agreed readily to a special one-day
forum on global IT security.

"E-crime to an extent challenges the nature of sovereignty because
it's a boundaryless activity, it requires governments to take a
different approach," Commissioner Matthews said.

Although new legislation helped by providing a framework for a legal
response, partnerships with business and the wider community were
vital.

"At the end of the day, if there's self-regulation wherever possible,
that's better than the heavy-handed approach," he said.

The committee had to work with the private sector to take practical
steps to minimise the likelihood of crime.

Then, if it did occur, it needed to be able to work with that sector
to identify responses.

"There's no way we have the skill sets within the police force in
Australia to address all the issues of e-crime; we need to draw on
[the private sector's] skill sets," he said.

Electronic crime was an increasing challenge for the police force, the
steering committee targeting five areas, including partnerships,
public education and enabling different areas of government such as
the police forces and NOIE to work together effectively.

Each of the police forces needed to strengthen its resources and
capacity to address electronic crime, he said.

"We probably have about 120 tasks and have picked up just a few of
them," he said.

The committee was looking at the possibility of creating a national
cybercrime centre similar to those in countries like Canada and
Britain.

"We're looking at what other countries have done; the general view is
that they do have a centralised response and investigative
capability," he said.

The obvious place for such as a centre could be in Canberra, through
the Australian Federal Police.

The steering committee was being helped in its work by the Australian
Centre for Policing Research, Adelaide.

Commander Barbara Etter has been seconded from the Northern Territory
police force to run the centre.

She will moderate the one-day session at the IT World Congress.

"A lot of the critical infrastructure is in the hands of the private
sector," she said.

"There will be a lot of attendees at the conference and we hope to
raise awareness on their part."

www.acpv.gov.au



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