Local government will be the next sector to be targeted
by online criminals, Tony Neate, head of industry liaison at the
National Hi-Tech Crime Unit’s (NHTCU), warned last week’s
conference of local government IT managers.
“The problems for you are just the same as they are for
industry. As council services and benefits go online they will
attract attention from criminal gangs who have so far focussed on
defrauding financial institutions, Neate said.
According to Neate, UK businesses lost £2.45bn to online crime
in 2004. They lost £620m on financial fraud and £560m on denial of
service attacks. One company suffered £40m of lost business from a
distributed denial of service attack.
Neate repeated to Socitm delegates the NHTCU’s standard appeal
for IT professionals to report to the police if their orgaisations
have been targeted by e-criminals. Both the NHTCU and the e-crime
units of local police forces would keep the identities of victims
of e-crime secret even if doing so jeopardiseda separate criminal
investigation, he pledged.
- Local authorities could improve their business continuity plans
by including their IT directors in decision making, said Neate. “If
they have an IT director on the board, their continuity is far
better than when they have a finance director with responsibility
for IT. Security works better from the top being pushed
downwards.”