A dedicated unit is to be created within the Welsh Assembly's Department of Enterprise Innovation and Networks (Dein) to help highlight, track and reduce the impact of e-crime on businesses in Wales.

The multi-agency e-crime unit will act as a central focus for information flow, increasing dialogue, intelligence gathering and reporting between government, police, academia and business.

The initiative will result in specialist e-crime officers within the four Welsh police forces.

Andrew Davies, minister for enterprise, innovation and networks, says e-crime is an issue that can only be tackled using the collective expertise and co-ordinated resources of many different agencies.

'Online criminals will increasingly find Wales a hard target because we'll be better informed and prepared for malicious attacks. This shows that here in Wales we all take the threat of e-crime very seriously indeed. Following the work undertaken and the attendance at the two previous summits, it's recognised across the UK that Wales has taken a lead on this issue,' he said.

The announcement will be made as a new study shows that incidences of e-crime are at an all-time high in Wales. A study commissioned by Dein, Research into the Prevalence and Impact of eCrime on the Welsh Economy, to be published next week, found almost one in three Welsh businesses have suffered from at least one e-crime attack in the past 12 months.

And while just over half (55 per cent) of Welsh companies conduct a regular audit of security procedures, larger companies are more likely to do this than smaller ones and over one third (36 per cent) do not have any security procedures in place at all.

The study also found that Welsh businesses not experiencing e-crime have a very reactive attitude towards it. Most would do more to protect themselves if they experienced a serious incident, but until that happens, their security measures won't change significantly.

'Everyone has a role to play, with the main focus being on crime prevention. For businesses this means increased awareness and understanding, improved vigilance, better processes and online security policies,' said Davies.

Detective chief superintendent Chris Corcoran, of North Wales Police, chair of the e-crime Steering Group, said: 'We're greatly encouraged by the support we've received for this initiative from both the public and private sectors. It is essential that the individual businesses are equipped with the knowledge and access to advice that will enable them to use the Internet profitably and safely.'