National Crime Agency to include cybercrime unit

The National Crime Agency will include a central cybercrime unit, according to home secretary Theresa May.

The unit and the National Crime Agency (NCA) will have operational capabilities, May told the House of Commons on Wednesday.

"The NCA will... house the national cybercrime unit, which will have its own investigative capacity and help local police forces to develop their own response to the online threat," said May.

The unit will act as "a centre of expertise on cybercrime", according to a strategy documentpublished by the Home Office on Wednesday. It will work with police forces internationally, and provide advice and training for local police forces.

Centralised cybercrime policing is currently coordinated by the Metropolitan Police Central eCrime Unit (PCeU). The Home Office on Wednesday declined to reveal its plans for PCeU.

The NCA, which the Home Office aims to become fully operational by December 2013, will take over serious organised crime operations from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

Soca's e-crime unit and PCeU will have the same structures up to the Olympics in 2012, said the Home Office.

"There will continue to be close working between the Police Central e-crime Unit in the Metropolitan Police and Soca's e-crime unit to develop the national response to cybercrime in advance of the creation of the NCA, but with no change to structures prior to the Olympics," said the Home Office Strategy.

The NCA will incorporate the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (Ceop), which will have a funding decrease of 10 percent by 2014.

Former Ceop head Jim Gamble resigned in October 2010 over the government plans to meld Soca and Ceop into the NCA.

The Home Office advertised on Wednesday for an interim head for the NCA, a post that the Home Office wants to fill with a senior chief constable.

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Social media a cyber threat to watch: Symantec

Social media has become a significant cyber threat according to the latest State of Security for Australian Businesses report, issued by global security software company Symantec.

The report found that two in every three of the businesses surveyed experienced a cyber attack, with more than three-quarters of those suffering financial losses. Although the figure was 63% for smaller businesses Steve Martin, head of SMB for the Pacific region at Symantec, said they could not afford to be complacent.

“A criminal will target a cyber attack to where they can get the most financial gain but that’s not always going to be the biggest fish: there will be smaller fish that are easier to catch,” he said. “Businesses of all sizes need to be aware that there are a huge number of attacks being attempted.”

The report stated that the three biggest protection challenges come from the emerging areas of mobile computing, social media, and the consumerisation of IT.

Martin singled out social media as a weak point businesses needed to consider in their cyber security measures. “Social media is clearly here to stay but a lot of businesses don’t quite understand the potential risks or exposures that can occur. One of the most prevalent approaches that criminals use in social media is to take a social engineering form of attack,” he warned.

He explained that a compromised identity could easily spread a bad link because friends would trust the source more readily. “‘It’s come from a good friend. I trust that friend, so I’m going to click on the link.’ That can then lead to employees visiting a website that has been compromised that could automatically download malicious code on your PC.”

Social engineering and malicious code were two of the fastest growing attack vectors, according to the report: both grew 29%, respondents indicated.

Although most businesses are “generally supportive” of social media, Martin expressed concern that they were not completely across the risks and exposures. “Staff education and awareness would be pretty important in that case,” he advised.

Australian businesses were “doing a reasonable job of keeping in front of the game”, he noted, though the deployment of polymorphic code—where viruses attack a few computers before evolving to evade traditional anti-virus software—meant the threat landscape was changing “rapidly”.

“There are a couple of key things businesses should be doing: the first one is to ensure they keep their technology patched and up to date; the second thing is to make sure that your security software is kept up to date and that you’ve installed the latest versions that you’re entitled to,” Martin recommended. “If you’re running security software that’s three years old it’s unlikely that you’re going to be protected from today’s attacks.”

Businesses ranked their concern about cyber attacks over natural disasters and terrorism.

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