For the private business sector, one of the most important elements in fighting the rapidly rising rate of cyber crime is co-operation. This is according to the views of EU, US and UK law enforcement officers.
Andy Archibald from the Cyber Crime Unit at the National Crime Unit said:Top of FormBottom of Form “The cyber threats are the same around the world, and the criminals operating in the UK are also operating in Europe and the US. Therefore, the response must be joined up. Our understanding of the threat and collection of intelligence and evidence must be co-ordinated.”
The FBI is convinced that the private business sector will more often see evidence of cyber-related crimes much quicker than law enforcement agencies. Experts believe that information should be shared by law enforcement agencies and security professionals in order to combat security breaches.
Because much of the cyber crime is instituted by highly organised gangs, it typically means that they are not specifically from just one region. The control and command systems may well be in the UK or US, but the money might be arriving in Germany or Bulgaria. Because of the way cyber crime is organised, it is important that international cyber space law enforcement barriers are broken down, and evidence is shared.
There is no doubt that the speed of new technology such as Cloud, 5G, IoT and VoIP combined with Unified Communications and super-fast broadband have all been beneficial to commerce. However, with every advance come new problems that have to be dealt with. Archibald believes that a lot has already been achieved in the last decade, but there is more to do.
His advice to the business world is: “Don’t wait for the malware to shut you down, don’t wait for the ransomware to lock up your servers.” He added: “It needs be a relationship that goes beyond information sharing, to include things like mitigation of threats and disruption of criminal infrastructure.”