http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=features&subclass=techno&category=industry%20news&story_id=117073&y=2001&m=12 By Wendy Levy Australia's police forces are looking to the private sector to help them in their fight with cybercrime, but so far the response has been patchy, according to the national Police Commissioners' Electronic Crimes Steering Committee. The chairman of the committee (and head of the WA Police), Commissioner Barry Matthews, said there had been an apparent lack of interest in the private sector. People discussed the latest virus or cybercrime theories, but were reluctant to protect their systems until they were attacked, he said. The banking sector had shown the greatest interest because there was recognition of potential vulnerabilities, but the steering committee had had limited success in getting prominent company heads together to discuss the issues and were now targeting smaller groups through presentations at Rotary, management seminars and so on. An exception was the IT World Congress, to be held in Adelaide in February, whose organisers had agreed readily to a special one-day forum on global IT security. "E-crime to an extent challenges the nature of sovereignty because it's a boundaryless activity, it requires governments to take a different approach," Commissioner Matthews said. Although new legislation helped by providing a framework for a legal response, partnerships with business and the wider community were vital. "At the end of the day, if there's self-regulation wherever possible, that's better than the heavy-handed approach," he said. The committee had to work with the private sector to take practical steps to minimise the likelihood of crime. Then, if it did occur, it needed to be able to work with that sector to identify responses. "There's no way we have the skill sets within the police force in Australia to address all the issues of e-crime; we need to draw on [the private sector's] skill sets," he said. Electronic crime was an increasing challenge for the police force, the steering committee targeting five areas, including partnerships, public education and enabling different areas of government such as the police forces and NOIE to work together effectively. Each of the police forces needed to strengthen its resources and capacity to address electronic crime, he said. "We probably have about 120 tasks and have picked up just a few of them," he said. The committee was looking at the possibility of creating a national cybercrime centre similar to those in countries like Canada and Britain. "We're looking at what other countries have done; the general view is that they do have a centralised response and investigative capability," he said. The obvious place for such as a centre could be in Canberra, through the Australian Federal Police. The steering committee was being helped in its work by the Australian Centre for Policing Research, Adelaide. Commander Barbara Etter has been seconded from the Northern Territory police force to run the centre. She will moderate the one-day session at the IT World Congress. "A lot of the critical infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector," she said. "There will be a lot of attendees at the conference and we hope to raise awareness on their part." www.acpv.gov.au - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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