Met Police rockets towards cyber goal
By Paul Smithson
03/10/2011
The Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) currently looks set to meet its target of saving the UK economy more than £504 million through cyber crime reduction over four years.
According to info4Security, the new division announced its results for the past six months, which show that about £140 million of harm has been prevented, which represents close to 30 per cent of the goal.
Deputy assistant commissioner (DAC) Janet Williams, e-crime lead for law enforcement at the Association of Chief Police Officers, suggested the team's performance could improve as its national capability develops.
For IT professionals handling network management solutions, the threat posed by cyber criminals has been evident for a while and the government responded to the danger by allocating £30 million of funding to the PCeU.
"In the initial six-month period the PCeU, together with its partners in industry and international law enforcement, has excelled in its efforts to meet this substantial commitment and delivered in excess of £140 million of financial harm reduction to the UK economy," said DAC Williams.
London24 reported that the division's 85-strong team is currently delivering an investment-to-return ratio of £1:35, significantly higher than the £1:21 figure promised.
It pointed out that there have been several major projects that have ended with prosecutions, including in Operation Dynamaphone and Operation Pagode.
