The UK’s new FBI-style crime fighting agency has unveiled plans to get tough on cyber crime.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has announced a range of new measures to tackle online crime gangs, such as a science laboratory to research emerging technologies that criminals might exploit.

Soca absorbed the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) when it was created last month, and had been criticised for apparently diluting its e-crime focus.

But the agency says it is looking to shut down organised crime gangs that use the internet for extortion, fraud, hacking and virus writing. It is also working with electronic payments firms and overseas law enforcement groups to target web sites trading stolen credit cards.

Criminals who design, sell or use malicious software – such as viruses, keyloggers and phishing emails – will also be tracked more fervently through joint operations involving Soca, the FBI and Russia’s Department K computer crime unit.

‘Our intention is to identify, disrupt and deter virtual crime groups that use the internet to attack UK victims, and we intend to seize the profits they make from the activities,’ said Sharon Lemon, deputy director of e-crime in her first speech since the creation of Soca.

The former head of the NHTCU also says serious focus will be given to card-not-present fraud, which increased by 21 per cent, and cost the UK £183.2m, last year. Soca will work with retailers to alert them to new tactics used to hack into customer payment card databases.

‘Attackers are focusing on ecommerce sites and payment processors. The weakness lies with the firms that hold this mass of data. Credit card fraud is the main market for online criminality now,’ Lemon told delegates at a conference in London last week.

The e-crime division will also educate Soca officers tackling drug-trafficking and immigration about how computer forensics can be used to gather evidence from emails, the internet and computer devices.

‘Criminals are using voice over IP and encryption to stop us finding them, but we need to get one step ahead,’ said Lemon.

But Jim Norton, senior policy advisor for the Institute of Directors, says firms which were previously able to report attacks to the NHTCU now have to contact local police forces that are often ill-equipped to tackle such crimes.

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