Policing must adapt to cyber threats

The police service has been warned that it must equip officers with the right tools and digital skills to tackle cybercrime with latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) likely to be just “a drop in the ocean”.

There were more than five million cases of cybercrime and fraud in the year to September 2016, according to the ONS Crime Survey for England and Wales.

And Henry Rex, programme manager, justice and emergency services at industry representative body techUK, said the figures “emphatically demonstrate the changing nature of crime”.

“While many more ‘traditional’ forms of crime are falling, the 3.6 million fraud cases and two million computer misuse offences last year present a significant new challenge for police forces nationwide,” he added.

“To tackle cybercrime and online fraud effectively, law enforcement agencies must be equipped with the right tools and digital skills. Only by having a close partnership with industry can the police ensure that they have access to the resources and capabilities they need.”

National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for crime and incident recording, Chief Constable Jeff Farrar, has said the ability to commit crime online “demonstrates the need for policing to adapt and transform to tackle these cyber challenges”.

“In our recent report, Digital Policing: The Future of Modern Crime Prevention, techUK outlined the models and mechanisms that would enable the police to access industry capabilities in an agile and practical way,” said Mr Rex.

He said they would look to work with the Government, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and police to ensure the UK is “well placed to keep the public safe from this evolving threat”.

Sean Martin, UK general manager, at data security specialist Covata, said the ONS report “reminds us that cybercrime is a serious – and growing – threat”.

“Two million computer misuse offences sounds like a lot, but this is likely to be a drop in the ocean compared to the real extent of UK cybercrime,” he added.

“This figure will increase over time as more people recognise they have been targeted and the police get better at detecting cybercrime. That said, the police is doing the right thing by including cybercrime in its crime report and it represents just how much crime has changed in the 35 years since the report was first generated.”

He added: “It is simply no longer possible to control where data travels or is held, as the numerous cyber breaches hitting the headlines demonstrate.”

The ONS statistics highlight the Government’s increased focus on cybercrime, including plans to invest £1.9 billion in its national cyber security strategy over the next five years.

In his speech last November to launch the Government’s National Cyber Security Programme, Chancellor Philip Hammond promised to strengthen the UK’s law enforcement capabilities to “raise the cost and reduce the reward of cyber criminality” to ensure they can “track, apprehend and prosecute those who commit cybercrimes”.

Part of this is the new government-funded ‘GCHQ Cyber Accelerator’ project announced last month that will work closely with intelligence personnel to devise a new wave of cyber-security systems.

Chris Ensor, the deputy director for cyber security skills and growth at the NCSC, said it would be an “important step forward” for online safety and follows a warning by NCSC head Ciaran Martin last September that the UK was not yet good enough to deal with the scale of cyber threats and attacks.

Alex van Someren, managing partner at Amadeus Capital Partners – and co-founder of the Cyber London accelerator for cybersecurity startups, CyLon – said the increasing use of the internet for e-commerce and banking “has presented ever-growing opportunities for criminals”.

“At the same time, the challenges of defending this complex and dynamic environment keep on increasing,” he added.

techUK says as the nature of crime changes, “how we fight it must change too”, and it wants to see the use of more digital identity technolog