UK ‘losing’ war against cyber-crime, says MPs

MPs said that UK needs more e-crime experts to stop online crimes.

09:10 31 July 2013

The Home Affairs Select Committee has published a report about cyber crime in the United Kingdom. In the report, the committee said that e-crime took various forms, and that UK is the number one target for gangs in 25 countries.

With proposed budget cuts and with the possibility of losing 800 specialist Internet crime officers, the report says that UK may lose war against cyber crime.

"At a time when fraud and e-crime is going up, the capability of the country to address it is going down," the report concluded.

"Ministers have acknowledged the increasing threat of e-crime but it is clear that sufficient funding and resources have not been allocated to the law enforcement responsible for tackling it."

The report recommends calling for a cyber-espionage team, to require banks to report all fraud to the police, obliging web firms to explain data security tools to new users, for prosecutors to review sentencing guidance for e-crimes, increasing the fund for European e-crime cooperation, mandatory code of conduct for removal of indecent material, and new body to report on and remove online terrorist content.