Speaking at the Cyber Security Summit in London, Jamie Saunders, director of the National Cyber Crime Unit at the National Crime Agency (NCA), called on greater cooperation between Government and business both nationally and internationally.
Following the efforts involved with the Gameover Zeus and Shylock, the latter of which the NCA was directly leading on, Saunders said that it has proven that the UK can deal with cyber criminality.
“GOZeus and Shylock proved that working with business and international allies, we can tackle international groups,” he said.
He said that the strategy is now about building on that success, and what the NCA does nationallly and internationally.
Sending a stark message to “those based here or using infrastructure that is here”, Saunders said: “We will find you and prosecute you.” He said that the NCA is able to get a rich picture of cyber crime and at a national level, what to do if a victim is hit. “More work is needed to do make actions cyber friendly and make sure local forces have expertise,” he said.
“We recognise that there is an attritional part of this and we are dealing with threats as they arrive. We may win the battle but not the war as gangs are drawing on a sophisticated and growing market and if we are going tó be stretched we need to start tackling the market. In our jurisdiction, it is hard to reach for the foreseeable future. What are the more strategic interventions to manage for a more achieveable scale?”
He concluded by saying that operations rely on cooperations, wider relations and partnerships, and without a monopoly of intelligence and information, he put questions to the community on what is being tackled, and asked the following:
You are investing an enormous amount of money, what do you see as the areas we should concentrate?
On the cyber hygiene message, we recognise business and Govenrment have a role, but what do we need to do to increase the take up?
What balance should we aim for between protection done by service providers of all kinds, and protection that Government can achieve? How much can we rely on Government and business to do?
In the cyber crime marketplace, what will have a decisive impact on that? Where do you think the vulnerabilties are?
He said: “The more we can do to get consistent ways to prioritise work and impact, the better.”
