- LONDON (Reuters) -- Organised
crime syndicates have stepped up their presence on the Internet, operating
extortion rackets, child pornography rings and elaborate financial scams,
Britain's top cyber cop told reporters.
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- And the most vulnerable target is the individual Web
user, said Detective Chief Superintendent Len Hynds, head of the United
Kingdom's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU).
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- "Organised crime is turning to the weakest element
in the chain, which is the people. It's the hands on the keyboard on either
end of the transaction that is the actual weak point," Hynds said.
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- The crime syndicates, he said, are based in every corner
of the globe. Investigations have led the NHTCU repeatedly to Eastern European
countries, including Ukraine, Russia and Latvia.
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- The groups have honed their Internet skills as a greater
flow of business is conducted online.
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- "Organised crime in all its guises is extremely
flexible. It does spot the new and lucrative opportunity," Hynds said.
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- In the NHTCU's two-year existence, the 55-person task
force has made nearly 110 arrests for such age-old crimes as blackmail
and extortion to decidedly hi-tech computer hacking cases.
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- Law enforcement officials throughout the world suspect
crime rings are recruiting technically savvy programmers to concoct fraud
schemes against banks and businesses.
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- An increasingly common scam hitting financial institutions
is known as "website spoofing" in which a fraudster sets up a
bogus online business that closely resembles a bank or business website.
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- The aim is to lure unsuspecting Internet users to the
phoney site in an effort to get them to submit their credit card and bank
details. The NHTCU said 40 UK businesses have been hit by the spoofing
scam so far this year, up from seven a year ago.
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