On-line paedophiles top net-crime threats, says report

The two-part report identifies 101 criminal threats on-line today, ranging from identity fraud and hacking to money laundering and the creation of illegal markets in restricted goods. Top of the worry list are on-line paedophilia, fraud and espionage.

The report also highlights the technical challenges, 137 in all, in combating on-line crime, including the problems posed by secure, encrypted communications, file-sharing services and the use of web sites in providing know-how to criminals.

There is no one solution to combating on-line crime, concludes the report. Instead industry, enforcement agencies and the government must look ahead, seeking to recognise the misuses that new technologies may be put to, before the criminal fraternity adopts them.

Prevention measures are key, according to the report, which advocates making sure that new technology is secure from the start, that users are educated enough to be able to operate it securely and that high risk users are encouraged to adopt similar preventive measures.

Cooperation between agencies, abroad and at home, and the setting up of forums to aid discussion would also be useful, says the report. Continuous and adequate training and resources are necessary too, at both the national and local level.

In general, the report calls for the tackling of net-crime to be regarded as part of normal policing, rather than as a specialist area.

"Almost all parties involved in tackling crime must recognise that they are now, or will very shortly be, faced with some form of net-crime and it is not going to disappear," says the report. "Such activity should not be seen as a one-off exercise, but a permanent and ongoing task affirming that the challenges of net-crime are not transitory, waiting to be 'solved' with the emergence of yet more new technology. Rather, the day-to-day criminal challenges facing us all have gained another element."