UK will fight back against hackers

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

The increasing number of hackers from Eastern Europe and Asia will now face a counter-attack if they try to penetrate UK and US networks.

According to The Guardian, police and defence agencies are now authorised to perform a "strikeback". If successful this could disrupt or even knock hackers off the internet using techniques like denial of service attacks.

Agents for the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Police Central e-crime Unit (PCeU) are said to be working on deploying teams for the offensive.

Speaking to The Guardian, a former CIA officer involved in the debate, said: "This is considered to be a key activity. We are being penetrated and it is not in our tradition to sit back and do nothing.

"This is a huge, huge deal in Washington and it is a high-priority discussion. What it means is that if we can identify who is doing this to us, then we can return fire with a payload that takes them out. That's a very big priority."

E-crime and cyber security has risen in importance on both sides of the Atlantic recently. In the UK, the government finally agreed to fund a dedicated e-crime unit. The new US President Barack Obama has also published a cyber-security review and continually stressed its importance on the campaign trail.