Looking for Help to Fight Cybercrime

Governments need help to fight cybercriminals, Interpol says.

James Niccolai, IDG News Service

In a speech here at the Internet Defense Summit, Raymond Kendall, Interpol's secretary general, called on the private sector to help in the battle against hackers and cyberterrorists

"Although the governments have a responsibility, of course, to create the legal conditions in which people like me and my colleagues can work, they also are limited in resources," Kendall said.

The summit gathered more than 100 top officials, mostly from the private sector but also from government and law enforcement, to brainstorm about ways to fight cybercrime. Kendall spoke via satellite link from Brussels.

"We can't afford to engage the kind of technology, the technicians, [or] the research resources which are necessary to come to quick and rapid solutions to deal with what is a relatively new phenomenon," Kendall said.

Adding to the problem is that laws governing computer crimes are spotty at best in many parts of the world. In some countries, laws may not even exist under which authorities could prosecute the computer hacker responsible for the Love Bug virus, he said.

Criminal Acts

And the Interpol chief had some harsh words for computer hackers.

"Hackers, and particularly young hackers, must be seen for what they are: They are criminals, they are committing criminal offenses which have consequences throughout the world," Kendall said. "They should be seen as that, not just as clever young people trying to prove that they can do something which nobody else can do."

Cyberterrorists also pose a growing threat to security and public safety, he said. Computer crimes enacted at the state level can be more effective for terrorists and more costly to victims than the "classic methods of bomb attacks and assassination," the Interpol chief said.

"It is really a serious threat to all of us and all of our societies," he said.

Kendall called on the private sector to flex its research and development budgets and come up with ways to protect networks against computer crimes. Moreover, he said, corporations need to make investments for the future by installing effective security equipment on their networks today.

"Prepare for the worst, with the necessary contingency programs in place to see that damage is limited," he said.

"And remember," Kendall concluded, "there is no such thing as absolute security. You have to prepare, and we have to be ready together to tackle this problem."