National Crime Agency's Triumph following Cyber Crime Strike Week

Last week proved to be a successful week ("Strike Week") for the National Crime Agency ("NCA") who had dedicated a week to targeting those committing cybercrimes.

The NCA launched 25 separate operations which were implemented by the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit, the Metropolitan Police and other regional organised crime units. The operations were intended to target those committing offences and also advise businesses and the general public about cyber associated risks such as network intrusion, data theft, fraud, malicious virus and software development and distributed denial of service attacks. These are malicious attacks on a server which makes the network inaccessible to its usual users.

Strike Week saw 57 people arrested nationally for cybercrime related offences including data theft, fraud and virus writing. Rather alarmingly, some of the suspects were as young as 16. In one particular arrest a suspect working for a group known as 'D33Ds Company' who had frequently carried out network intrusion attacks, stealing over 400,000 email addresses and passwords from Yahoo and publishing them online. Details of all of the arrests can be found on the NCA's website.

During Strike Week, the NCA also gave talks to over 60 business in respect of protecting their systems and methods of identifying threats to their servers.

Pop-up shops were also organised over the weekend in London, Reading, Manchester and Derby by The Association of Chief Police Officers to provide advice to the general public regarding virus protection and general protection online.

Although the successful Strike Week has now come to an end, the NCA will continue to target those committing cybercrime and will provide support and assistance to anybody who may be a victim of such crime.

If you suspect that you are a victim of online crime, it is advised that you visit www.actionfraud.police.uk or contact us for advice on 0191 281 4000 or legal@mcdanielslaw.com