Lord Birt – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Birt on 2015-11-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will seek to improve the effectiveness of national and global measures to counter internet fraud and other online crime.

Lord Bates

Cyber Security, including combating cyber crime, is a top priority threat to national security. That is why, through the National Cyber Security Programme, we have invested over £90 million over the last five years to bolster the law enforcement response, and we will continue to invest. As the Chancellor announced on 17 November, we plan to almost double investment in cyber security, including cyber crime, to £1.9 billion over the next five years.

Cyber Crime, including internet enabled fraud will continue to call for a multi layered response from Government, Law Enforcement and Industry to successfully tackle the threat. At the National and International level the National Cyber Crime Unit in the National Crime Agency (NCA) will continue to lead operations to disrupt serious cyber crime at scale. This includes joint operations with industry and international law enforcement partners across the globe, to disrupt cyber criminals, attack their infrastructure and protect UK businesses and citizens.

Having an accurate national picture of the threat is critical to informing our ongoing response. That is why there has been and will continue to be significant investment in Action Fraud and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, which has seen the reporting of fraud and cyber crime trebled, from 72,000 before the centralisation of reporting to over 230,000 reports. As a result of this improvement in reporting we have now got a much improved intelligence picture.

Industry also has a central role in fraud and Cyber Crime prevention. That is why we are working with the banking sector and law enforcement agencies to more effectively disrupt fraudsters and protect victims. The Government also continues to raise awareness of cyber crime and fraud at all levels, through the Cyber Streetwise campaign, while providing advice to help individuals and small businesses adopt safer behaviours online and to be better protected. The third phase, launched in September this year focuses on promoting the adoption of three simple online behaviours: use of three random words to create a strong password; install security software on all devices; and always download the latest software and app updates as soon as they appear.

The UK also leads international efforts to raise global cyber resilience through our work with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe and others, to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the threat from Cyber Crime. In the past three years the NCA has used Government funding to increase the investigative capacity of a range of Law Enforcement partners around the World. The projects, which range from ‘on-the-job’ investigative mentoring to legislative and technical training in the UK, focus on supporting the NCA’s priority countries overseas and build capability and mutually beneficial relationships with key partners across the globe.