A View from the London Conference on CyberSpace

By Greg Day, EMEA Security CTO for Symantec | November 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment 

Greg Day, EMEA Security CTO for Symantec

In recent years, I’ve attended numerous events looking at the subject of cyberspace and the related threats, so what made the event hosted by the Foreign Office different from those that have come before? One significant variation that comes to mind first is the level of international support – with 60 countries coming together. Consequently, this event has provided a real opportunity to take another step forward in the direction of getting international discussion and co-operation on how to make the Internet a safer place for citizens, for businesses and for governments.

During the conference, I took part in a panel discussing “Policing in the Cyber Age”, focusing on the need for collaboration between the various law enforcement agencies, industry and the security industry. There were some great examples of initiatives to support tackling cybercrime, such as Symantec’s Norton Cybercrime Institute, which provides information on the genealogy of attacks, training and support to law enforcement agencies and judges.

What is evident was that whilst organisations such as the Police eCrime Unit (PeCU) and SOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency) are able to share some great case studies of how cybercrime cases are effectively investigated, and how cybercriminals have been caught and prosecuted, I heard other nations admit that they have had less success, with fewer than a handful of convictions to date.

What continues to stand out most to me are the additional hurdles and challenges that exist when dealing with cybercrime on an international level, from simple collaboration between agencies in terms of victim attribution, through to evidence and intelligence sharing. Consequently, it would seem that there are still legal and technical challenges and obstacles to developing partnerships needed to tackle cybercrime that unless addressed could become a cybercriminal’s best friend.

You could easily come away from such a conference feeling alarmed at the scale of the challenge still ahead but for me this was all positive for the following reasons: to start with, this was the first event of its kind, and there is already the commitment to repeat the gathering for the next two years. From my perspective, this is encouraging sign that actions will follow.

Secondly it’s only when we openly discuss the challenges today that we can start to see a way forwards, and much of this is about smarter collaboration (between governments, law enforcement, legislation and industry).

Finally we must remember that many countries around the world are at different stages of their digital development and cybercrime is a relatively young problem. Many countries are still trying to get to grips with what legislation, resource and expertise, to name but a few aspects they may need to address the problems they are facing.

My hope is that this collaboration can help to tackle many of these issues, yet even at this first event, some of the most fundamental challenges started to be addressed:
• Knowledge exchange and education are crucial
• The level of networking between people, organisations and countries attending can only help drive the global bar of cybercrime prevision
• Skilled experts in criminology now need to translate their skills into global cyberspace.