New reporting procedures for public will help police

Victims of cyber crime should be able to report incidents to the police, according to the officer in charge of a new e-crime unit.

Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie of the Metropolitan Police said that the National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC) will give back to members of the public the choice to inform police of online fraud, following Home Office changes made in April 2007.

These changes meant that members of the public should report card and cheque crime to their banks rather than police.

“If you are a victim of a crime, you report it to the police. If you don't, it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t get tackled, and we don’t get the resources in the future to fight it,” said DS McMurdie.

Speaking at at the Internet Service Provider's annual e-crime forum, DS McMurdie, who is heading up the Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), said the internet played a role in most crimes these days.

Reports collected by the NFRC will also be evaluated and assessed by another new organisation, the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, and both groups will be working closely.

It will ensure the authorities know how much internet crime is taking place and mean that data is collated in a format that the police can use. DS McMurdie also said the NRFC realised that the police response to victims of e-crime needed to be improved as did its knowledge and training to deal with such crimes.

“There are 140,000 police officers around the UK and most of them don't know one end of the computer from the other, other than the PC they use on a day-to-day basis," said DS McMurdie. "If you went into your local police station and said you had picked up some malware they wouldn’t have the foggiest of what you are talking about."

She was also frank about what the public should expect. With resources tight and a lot of training to be done, she stressed that police will not be able to investigate all incidents of online fraud.

“We won’t investigate every Ebay crime. I only have a total of around 30 police officers and support staff. There are two main criteria that need to be met; crimes that are low volume but high value or if they constitute an attack on the UK,” she said.

This means crimes such as the Instant AV, Ebay Sidozey and Zavvi Direct scams followed by Computeractive in 2007 and 2008 – when thousands of people were taken in by fraudsters – are exactly the kind of crimes the new NFRC working with other bodies and the PCeU would be able to send out for investigation.