As soon as businesses understand that being attacked is not a shameful thing, and that we can help them, then they will admit they have been attacked. Hughes claimed that the online divisions of four British banks were cracked. He did not specify which banks were compromised, but said that local police have verified that successful attacks were carried out and have tracked the criminals. Hughes explained that the technology crime unit will focus on both 'new crimes done with new tools,' such as computer cracking and software pirating, and 'old crimes done with new tools,' such as scams, stalking, and hate crimes which are committed by criminals using technology. The numbers are expected to double as the unit becomes fully operational within three years.
Criminals look for the highest return with the least risk.
He was also careful to emphasize that the officers would not be randomly monitoring the Net or reading people's e-mail. There is no intention for us to randomly intercept and read people's e-mails. But British civil liberties groups are still concerned that the furor to combat cybercrime will lead to an erosion of citizens' rights and privacy. There is a definite concern that the government will use the Hi-Tech crime unit as a wedge into all citizens personal lives. London lawyer Ian Murray, who specializes in Internet issues, feels that the unit would probably not impact on people's privacy, but he also thinks it will have little, if any, effect on serious cybercrime.