Throughout the United Kingdom, this week has been dubbed ‘strike week’. This isn’t because workers in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are going on work stoppages. They’ve dedicated this week to crack down on hacking and other cyber crimes.
Twenty-five operations have been carried out in the United Kingdom and there have been at least 56 arrests. These people have been arrested for ID theft, fraud and virus writing. One operation found a hacker suspected of hacking Yahoo back in 2012. In the West Midlands, England area (the county that holds Birmingham, England), they arrested a man suspected of hacking in the US Dept of Defense last year. But the biggest bust took place between the city of London and county of Essex, just north of London. In these two areas, 25 people were arrested for attempting to steal and launder money through cyber means. It gets better: they already stole information from over 800 people. Also in London, a young man was arrested for his ties with a British hacking group called The D33Ds. This group allegedly stole around 400,000 Yahoo email addresses and passwords. The police group behind ‘strike week’ is called National Cyber Crime Unit.
Why am I talking about a major British story while living in the United States? What does this have to do with us? It shows that the good guys can win against these cyber criminals. It shows these guys who wreck lives behind a computer screen can be held accountable. So good for United Kingdom’s ‘strike week’. I think we should follow their example. We have the tools, manpower and will to do it. We need an anti-cyber crime unit to dedicate a week or month to crackdown on cyber crime. Go after the crime leaders first. If the head is cut off, the body will shut down (sorry if that sounded too graphic). We’re already doing this with revenge porn, cyber bullying, and sextortion. Can’t we do it with financial based cyber crimes?