Cybercops squad to fight crime with computers

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/11/12/stinwenws01004.html

Michael Prescott and James Clark
November 12, 2000

BRITAIN is to get an elite 20m unit of "cybercops" to fight internet
fraudsters, paedophiles and hackers, the government will announce
tomorrow.

Jack Straw, the home secretary, will tell the Commons that the group
will include officers based with every police force.

The National High-Tech Crime Unit will be the largest and most
sophisticated of its type in Europe, rivalled only by an organisation
run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in America. It will start
work next year.

It will include staff taken from the police, customs, the National
Crime Squad and the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS).

The new unit will be responsible for catching child-sex offenders who
prowl the internet trying to trap children into agreeing to meet them.
It will also combat fraud aimed at British business, internet-selling
scams and attacks on the "national infrastructure" by hackers.

Charles Clarke, the Home Office minister, who addressed an NCIS
conference on financial crime at Warwick last week, said yesterday:
"Cybercrime is one of the most important and difficult challenges
facing law enforcement. It can only be contested using top technical
skills. That is what this government is committed to."

At present Britain does not have a dedicated computer crime unit. The
intelligence services control a group protecting vital national
systems, but this was severely criticised last week after it failed to
spot the "I love you" virus that struck computers in the summer.

The Commons intelligence and security committee, chaired by Tom King,
the former Northern Ireland secretary, revealed that MPs knew about
the bug five hours before the "cyber-spooks", who failed to warn
American colleagues in time to prevent users from turning on their
computers at the start of the day.

The anti-virus role will now pass to the new unit. Based at NCIS's
south London headquarters, it will also have departments in all of the
police forces in England and Wales, and possibly also in Scotland.

Martin Francis, a consultant who advises large companies on computer
security, said: "This is long overdue."

The Home Office will fund the unit's 20m budget and a head will be
announced later this year.


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