Fergie's Tech Blog

UK's Poor Record on Prosecuting Hackers Revealed

Sarah Hilley writes on ComputerWeekly.com:

Experts have called for more police resources to fight computer crime, after it emerged that only 299 hackers have been charged under the UK's computer crime law over the past four years.

Computer Weekly has discovered that only 110 cases involving unauthorised access and virus writing reached magistrates' courts across the country last year from November 2007 to October 2008, 59 cases reached court in the year to October 2007, while 49 cases were brought to court in the year to October 2006.

The figures, obtained by CW under the Freedom Of Information Act, pale in comparison with the estimated amount of computer crime taking place.

The DTI Information Security Breaches Survey showed that 96% of large companies suffered a security incident last year, and 13% of all companies detected unauthorised access on their networks.

There were 144,500 cases of computer misuse in the UK in 2006, according to a survey by online identity firm Garlik. The study found a further six million virus incidents took place during the same period.

posted by Fergie @ 3/02/2009 11:28:00 AM