AFP Chief Warns On Dangers of Cyber Crime
ALL Australians who own computers should immediately invest in anti-virus software, the Australian Federal Police commissioner, Tony Negus, said yesterday.
Mr Negus, who spoke yesterday at the second annual Australian High Tech Crime Conference, held in Sydney, said cyber crime had become so sophisticated innocent people could have their computers accessed without knowing.
The advance in technology had become so rapid that today 2 billion people had access to computers, the Facebook system had 8 billion hits a day, and there were more than 5 billion mobile phones.
But within that milieu, criminals were working to beat security systems and waged a constant war with law enforcement authorities.
”There is an increasing potential for ordinary people to become victims of crime,” Mr Negus said. ”But less than 50 per cent of Australians even have anti-virus software.”
Mr Negus said that the older generation had to become aware of the problems of cyber crime, an area that had not existed as they grew up.
”Many people in this room started out using manual typewriters,” he said. ”Today most new employees will never have known a world without mobile phones.”
A global taskforce had been established, which included the Australian Federal Police and representatives of the United States and Britain, to work out modes of collaboration and partnership.
Professor Michael Fraser, director of the Communications Law Centre at the University of Technology Sydney, which convened the conference alongside the federal police, said it was possible with today’s computer crime for little or no evidence to be left on an offender’s computer.
”If there is evidence, it requires vast resources to be able to have access to it.”
The Cyber Crime Act did allow law enforcement officers to analyse situations in which a criminal stored all his evidence in another jurisdiction through a commercial provider.
The criminal laws of trespass and fraud ran the risk of being ineffectual in the face of the unique features of cyber crime.
”We need a coordinated national response to cyber crime,” he said. ”Our information society, our knowledge and security depend on reliability, confidence and trust in the online system.”