Experts discuss new ways to fight cybercrime

Wolverhampton and Walsall were recently cited as some of the UK’s hotspots for on-line fraud and evidence shows there is still a lack of awareness in protecting personal data.

The University’s School of Computing and IT co-hosted the event with the UK Academy of Information Systems and the National e-Crime Prevention Centre.

The conference opened with Cliff Evans, who is the UK Head of Security and Privacy at Microsoft Ltd. He gave a welcome perspective on what the major IT suppliers are doing to reduce security problems with operating systems and software.

He announced that Microsoft will also be launching free anti-virus software “Microsoft Security Essentials” which will be available for download soon.

David Wall, Professor of Criminal Justice and Information Technology at Leeds University outlined the current issues facing internet users. Delegates then heard from Catherine Dawson of The University of the Fraser Valley, Canada, who looked at the particular issues related to child-abuse on-line and steps taken to reduce this.

The conference then went on to examine proposals to address the problems from the perspective of the IT industry, legislation, law enforcement and government led partnerships.

Professor Russ Davis, who is working with the European Committee for Standardisation with the European Union in Brussels, talked about the proposed changes to European Data Protection Laws to meet today’s IT environment.

The recently published cybercrime strategy for law enforcement was presented by Ken Rabey from the National e-Crime Prevention Centre based at the University of Wolverhampton.

He said: “While the proposed National Fraud Reporting Centre and Police Central e-Crime Unit are welcome tools in the fight against cybercrime, more needs to be invested to raise individual and company awareness of how to protect themselves on the internet.”

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