Report on Cyber Crime highlights scale of threat

CJI Chief Inspector Brendan McGuigan has called on the PSNI to take steps to better understand the challenge and scale of the threat posed by Cyber Crime in Northern Ireland. View Inspection Report Page.

Mr McGuigan said a comprehensive analysis was needed to assist the police to tackle underreporting of cyber crime in partnership with  its justice, business and community partners and  inform how they best respond to this rapidly growing area of crime.

" Cyber crime is varied. It can be anonymous and borderless offering criminals high reward for relatively low risk. "We recognise in this inspection report the work the police have already carried out in this area and the investment that has been made in developing specialist technical and forensic skills to investigate cyber dependent crime and in expanding its cyber crime capacity.  However further work is required to better understand the extent of this type of offending and the challenges it will present for policing. 

"There is also an onus on each one of us to take steps to increase our own online security and awareness of cyber crime to protect ourselves from this threat.," said Mr McGuigan.

He concluded by emphasising the critical importance of partnership working between the police and others to the ensure the PSNI is successful if preventing and reducing crime in this area.