By Sonya Rabbitte, 19 October 2000 18:30
NEWS Delegates at yesterday's World Ecommerce Forum in London were calling for a tougher stance on cybercrime as the problem continues to escalate. But Michael Vatis, director of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, rejected the idea, saying it would be a difficult and lengthy process to implement. Instead he called for industry to spearhead the battle against cybercrime in cooperation with international governments and law agencies. Vatis said: "Cooperation from industry is absolutely vital because industry, for the most part, is the victim. We can't make any headway in dealing with cybercrime unless victims report it. We have made progress. We've had a lot more companies report incidents to us, the growth in our workload over the past three years has at least doubled. It's proof that victims are coming to report to us more." Peter Sommer, senior research fellow at the LSE and ecommerce advisor to the DTI select committee, backed the call for an industry-headed movement. He said that an international cybercrime squad was theoretically a good idea but would raise complex questions of control, jurisdiction and privacy, and as the primary victims of cybercrime, ecommerce companies should take responsibility. "For a wide variety of computer crimes we cannot routinely expect a serious police response. It's similar to the situation with routine burglary like car crime," said Sommer. He added: "If you have been hit by a fraudster more than once, that's a sloppy operation. I don't think the taxpayer should be protecting a retailer who can't run their own website." Watch out for the full interview with Michael Vatis in November as part of silicon.com's special report into the impact of globalisation. For more information on the World Ecommerce Forum see http://www.worldecom.org
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