[pchelpers] News:Worldwide laws fail to fight cyber crime

Survey shows insufficient laws to prosecute hackers
Daniel Thomas, Computing, 20 Apr 2006

Nearly three-quarters of IT security experts believe that international 
laws are inadequate for fighting cyber criminals, according to research.

Some 74 per cent of delegates at this year’s e-Crime Congress in London 
believe there is insufficient international legislation in place to 
tackle the growing threats of phishing, computer hacking and denial of 
service attacks.

The 110 respondents from 20 countries cite lack of global co-operation 
and inadequate police resources as the main reasons why internet 
criminals are not being prosecuted. Some 61 per cent say that current 
legislation is unenforceable.

‘It becomes difficult with jurisdictions and making prosecutions because 
there are no geographical boundaries on the internet,’ said Mark 
Murtagh, European technical director at Websense, the IT security firm 
that conducted the research.

‘It is a problem that is not going to change anytime soon. Criminal acts 
that are affecting people in the UK are often being carried out in 
countries where governments are not co-operating,’ he said.

Sixty-four per cent of IT security professionals believe that stronger 
legislation, such as the Council of Europe’s cyber crime convention, 
will improve how hackers, virus writers and extortionists are prosecuted 
internationally.

Clive Longbottom, service director at analyst Quocirca, says governments 
should agree to a set of rules and strictly adhere to them.

‘If the countries do not sign up they should be cut off from the 
internet. But unfortunately governments will never go with that approach 
because they do not like working together,’ he said.

As well as greater police resourcing and government legislation, 
technology vendors need to do more to remove security vulnerabilities 
from products, which can be exploited by criminals.

‘You are never going to be able to keep ahead of the brilliance of some 
of the criminals out there, but there are steps that can be taken to 
close some of them down,’ said Longbottom.

Sourced from:
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2154350/worldwide-laws-fail-fight-cyber

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