Today the Government announced its long awaited National Security Strategy which for the first time highlights cyber crime as a major threat - both to business and to the public.

Whilst we’re pleased that the Government says it “is alert” to the significant threats posed by cyber crime, we are very disappointed that it has not outlined any stronger initiatives to tackle it.

Our own members tell us that cyber criminals are undoubtedly stepping up the activities which ultimately impact all computer users and unless we respond with appropriate counter-initiatives, there is the very real possibility that we might lose this fight.

We have told the Government that action is needed now.

We think that a vital starting place is the re-establishment of a central law enforcement body - operating in the equivalent way to the NHTCU - where large organisations can report cases of ecrime. At the moment no such body exists.

This is something the Forum has been calling for for the past year.

The Government accepts that highly-organised gangs are behind many major instances of electronic crime. Now we need a highly-resourced ecrime police unit, staffed by experts trained to understand the sophisticated nature of global electronic crime and the behaviour of high-tech criminal gangs.