Worldwide laws still unable to contain cybercrime

At this year's e-Crime Congress in London an interesting survey was carried out on the delegates. It was not surprising that 74% of the participants believe that the current state of international laws is unable to contain cybercriminals from their activites.

The three main threats being phishing, computer hacking and denial of service attacks. Of the 20 countires, 110 respondents cite the lack of global co-operation and inadequate police resources as the main reasons why internet criminals are not being prosecuted. Worse, even some 61 % seem to believe that the current legislation is unenforceable. Many believe that a stronger legislation, such as the Council of Europe’s cybercrime convention, will improve how hackers, virus writers and extortionists are prosecuted internationally.

Personally, the results of this report is unsurprising. But I think it takes far more than mere tough legislation to thwart cybercrime. It has to be a strong commitment (which means resources and capital must be put into the effort) by governments to work together to establish strong laws as well as to assist each other in cross jurisdictional investigation and prosecution. International organised cybercrime if left unchecked in the near future will make the mafia and triad organisations look like amateurs in terms of how they can affect the stability of businesses, economies and governments.

It looks like it may take yet another Sept 11th on the Internet network before the governments wake up to the call.

Worldwide laws fail to fight cyber crime - Computing