Is This Something We Should Be Worried About?

[youngmafbog]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23495121

I must admit I had assumed Plod was on the ball with this as it has been known about for some time.

Clearly we can use the helmets so perhaps a purpose built squad of Geeks is required with Police powers? (Except arrest obviously) Same squad could be used for other ciber problems such as illicit porn and gambling?

[Gromit]

GCHQ already receives £millions to combat cyber crime.

// Ministers have set aside £650m of new money to better protect key infrastructure and defence assets from "cyber warfare". //

As far as private businesses are concerned, they need to spend their own money protecting themselves, not the publics. If the majority of FT100 firms are under protected, then they need to spend less on shareholder dividends, and more on keeping the criminals out.

[mikey4444]

I think that we have been losing this fight for a long time now. Criminals always seem to get one step ahead of us so easily. But we can all do more ourselves to stop some of the action at least. I paid the bill with my charge card recently in a well-known Pub chain and raised a stink when the waitress wanted to take the card back to the counter and put it through a machine without me being present. She seemed somewhat non-nonplussed when I wouldn't allow her to do this but the Manager had more sense when I called for him. Simple thing but I may have stopped something horrible happening. Also, so many people don't shield their cards when inputting their pin in places like Tesco. Its no wonder that there is so much fraud going on.

[Gromit]

Vaz and his committee seem to be covering old ground. Provision and strategy from 2011 and funding over 4 years seems more than adequate.

https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/keeping-the-uk-safe-in-cyberspace

[jno]

indeed, mikey, this one surprised me

http://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2013/jul/29/courier-scam-lose-money-bank-cards?INTCMP=SRCH

I didn't know that business about hanging up not terminating the call.

[mikey4444]

jno...yes I have heard of that one before. Its easy to see how anybody would be duped as its so blo0dy clever !

To be honest, I hardly ever use my charge card at all, apart from perhaps Tesco and its petrol station. I ripped up my credit card years ago, so I can't be scammed there. Also if you use your charge card, any fraud is limited by the amount of money that its is your bank. As there is never very much in mine, even if someone does clone me, they can't steal very much !

People have become very complacent about plastic. You see people use a card to spend less that £5 all the time. It surely easier to just carry a few quid around with you than keep using a card for such trivial amounts.

Another thing that has changed over the years is how comfortable some people seem to be with using credit cards, and therefore getting into debt. My nieces think nothing of spending £100 or more on clothes that they don't really need, and use a card to pay for it. If you notice, especially in clothes shops, that people rarely use cash any more.

When credit cards first came out, in the the early 70's, Access sent out millions of cards, seemingly at random, to addresses all over Britain, just to recruit people into getting into debt. My old Mum tried to use one in the local Co-op and couldn't understand why the staff looked at her as if she was mad !

[pixie373]

My friend bought a car for £6000, seemingly through Autotrader, but it was a false window. The money went through and no car arrived. The police knew the village of the person who had set up the fraudulent site, but said they wouldn't be doing anything about it as "there was too much of this kind of crime and it was such a grey area." So she lost the money.

[jake-the-peg]

Yes this is something to be worried about.

The situation is that the load on police forces is rapidly spiralling out of control.

Every time they arrest someone for anything even moderately serious they're going to seize computers and mobile phones - and someone has to analyse that.

Talking to a policewoman recently who was telling me that in non-urgent cases the backlog of this was 8 months in her area!

Capability also varies widely by region - there was the national high-tech Crime unit that's been taken over by SOCA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_Organised_Crime_Agency now but this sort of capability is stretched

[anotheoldgit]

Yes maybe it is something to worry about, but I think that Keith Vaz was over reacting when he said,

/// "The threat of a cyberattack to the UK is so serious it is marked as a higher threat than a nuclear attack. ///

[jno]

I take your point, aog, but I think he meant that it was more likely, rather than that it would be more devastating.

[jake-the-peg]

Really?

Which country has a nuclear weapon and a delivery system able to reach us and the desire to do so?

On the other hand there have been a number of high profile international cyber attacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare#Incidents

The expected effects of such an attack would be lower than a nuclear attack but the chances of it happening (the threat) I would say is much much higher.