There are three cyber employers out there: police, tech companies and attackers, who are all after the same style of graduates.
According to Rob Wainwright, who was appointed director of Europol in 2009 after a career in international law enforcement, organised gangs are this generation’s most-talented computer programmers and national police forces are struggling to keep up.
In an interview with the Independent, Wainwright said that some of graduates “took a left turn coming out of the building instead of a right turn” and admitted that across the board in Europe, “the police are really struggling to get the right guys through the doors because they can’t afford to pay the rates that criminals and the tech guys do.”
He said that the key players behind cyber crime are protected by the states’ failure to legislate and keep up to speed with their tactics, and echoed recent comments by Mark Stokes, head of digital and electronic forensic services at the Metropolitan Police, that there is a need for “good intuitive tools that are easy to learn”.
Wainwright said that the Communications Data Bill represented only a small part of the tactics needed to counter cyber crime, while the impact of surveillance detailed by Edward Snowden has seen consumer technology adopt stronger encryption, and marketing them as such. “The internet allows for the offender online to conceal his identity in a way that makes it in some cases impossible for police to overcome,” says Mr Wainwright.
“Something has changed to such a point, accelerated by the impact of Snowden, in which they understand the public’s greater concern to be threat of Big Brother snooping from the state.”
