The two-part report identifies 101 criminal threats on-line
today, ranging from identity fraud and hacking to money laundering
and the creation of illegal markets in restricted goods. Top of the
worry list are on-line paedophilia, fraud and espionage.
The report also highlights the technical challenges, 137 in all,
in combating on-line crime, including the problems posed by secure,
encrypted communications, file-sharing services and the use of web
sites in providing know-how to criminals.
There is no one solution to combating on-line crime, concludes
the report. Instead industry, enforcement agencies and the
government must look ahead, seeking to recognise the misuses that
new technologies may be put to, before the criminal fraternity
adopts them.
Prevention measures are key, according to the report, which
advocates making sure that new technology is secure from the start,
that users are educated enough to be able to operate it securely
and that high risk users are encouraged to adopt similar preventive
measures.
Cooperation between agencies, abroad and at home, and the
setting up of forums to aid discussion would also be useful, says
the report. Continuous and adequate training and resources are
necessary too, at both the national and local level.
In general, the report calls for the tackling of net-crime to be
regarded as part of normal policing, rather than as a specialist
area.
"Almost all parties involved in tackling crime must recognise
that they are now, or will very shortly be, faced with some form of
net-crime and it is not going to disappear," says the report. "Such
activity should not be seen as a one-off exercise, but a permanent
and ongoing task affirming that the challenges of net-crime are not
transitory, waiting to be 'solved' with the emergence of yet more
new technology. Rather, the day-to-day criminal challenges facing
us all have gained another element."
