In an increasingly digitised society and economy, the growth of cyber-crime is inevitable. In the past a single individual was extremely limited in how much damage they could do, or how much money they could steal. However, the proliferation of the internet gives cyber-crime distinct advantages over traditional criminal avenues:

1. Cyber-crime is extremely scalable, one person has the potential to target hundreds if not thousands of people at once, and steal thousands if not millions of pounds with relative ease. Such was the case with South Korean web-hosting firm Nayana who paid attackers over $1 million .
2. Cyber-criminals can operate with relative security and anonymity compared to traditional criminals (Europol, 2017)

In terms of attacks on businesses in the UK there were 34 significant cyber-attacks, and 762 less serious cyber attack in the 14 months post October 2016 (NCA, 2018). Although these are not massive numbers, each cyber-attack could cost a company thousands, if not millions, of pounds and result in the breaching of potentially thousands of private records

Cybercrime targeted at individual victims caused the loss of over £190,000 every day in 2018.

“The scale and complexity of cyber-attacks is wide ranging. ‘Off the shelf’ tools mean that less technically proficient criminals are now able to commit cybercrime, and do so as awareness of the potential profits becomes more widespread.”

(NCA, 2018)

In the past police have been able to do little about the majority of cybercrime, especially that targeted towards individuals. Additionally the perception of cybercrime within the police was that it was fairly low priority, and held little interest to a regular officer (Button, Blackbourn, & Tunley, 2015).

So far, the response from the police has been to create specialist units that are trained for cybercrime, this is a new form of work that is appearing in the digital economy. Although there are not that many officers in this role currently, the need for them will only become greater as the prevalence and seriousness of cybercrime increases.

5G Will pose a significant challenge

Roll out of 5G networks will present security issues. 5G will mean there are many more internet of things (IoT) devices connected to the system; meaning many more ways for criminals to gain illegal access (Huber, 2019)

The stakes will be higher also, nearly everything will be connected to the 5G network, meaning a hacker would be able to cause vastly more disruption than they would be able to under current conditions. Think of the step up in possible disruption from traditional crime to cyber-crime, then apply that step again to how much damage can be caused by compromising a 5G system.

Looking to the future then how will the job of a regular police officer change?

Increase in the number of “Cyber-police”

There are three factors that will lead to an increase in “cyber-police” numbers:

1. The decrease in traditional crime modalities is being more than matched by the increase in in cybercrime (Loveday, 2017). This is due to the ease and reward available from cybercrime, and this effect will only get stronger as more and more of our society becomes reliant and connected to the internet
2. Decrease in number of regular officers needed to police a given amount of traditional crime due to improvements in technology used to assist police.
3. Increase in the seriousness of cybercrime. More money and more peoples personal private information will be at stake than ever before, moving cybercrime up the list of priorities for the police.

Retraining the Police Force

This means that normal police officers may need to retrain as “cyber-police” (which will constitute a radically different skill set) to help tackle this revolution in how criminals operate. They will need to have knowledge including programming, malware identification and analysis, as well as the ability to operate a wide range of hardware. But this raises several questions:

Will police officers be happy retraining for what is a greatly different role?
What new skills will they need to learn?
Will everyone be able to learn these skills?

Lifelong Learning

One of the distinguishing features of cybercrime from normal crime is that it evolves rapidly due to the potential reward for the criminal. This means criminals will be coming up with new methods constantly in order to get around the measures put in place by law enforcement. This is particularly true for state actors who will have the backing and resources of their respective governments, making them much more powerful.

This means that even when we have a fully trained, knowledgeable, and well equipped police force ready to deal with cybercrime there will need to be structures in place to facilitate constant learning throughout their careers, in order to adapt to the constantly evolving threat.

In Conclusion

it is evident that the nature of police work will change drastically in the future, and the police will have to ensure they are ready to adapt to the challenge.

What novel challenges can you identify that the police will need to address in a more digitised economy?
Will a more digitised society provide the police with more opportunities or threats?
How well do you think a regular police officer will be able to adapt to these changes?

Bibliography

Button, M., Blackbourn, D., & Tunley, M. (2015). The not so thin blue line after all? Investigative resources dedicated to fighting fraud /economic crime in the UK. Policing, 129-142.

Europol. (2017). Crime in the age of technology. Europol.

Huber, N. (2019). A hacker’s paradise? 5G and cyber security. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/: https://www.ft.com/content/74edc076-ca6f-11e9-af46-b09e8bfe60c0

Loveday, B. (2017). Still plodding along? The police response to the changing profile of crime in England and Wales. Police Science and Management, 101-109.

NCA. (2018). The cyber threat to UK business. National Cyber Security Centre.

NCA. (2018). The threat from cyber crime. Retrieved from Nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk: https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/what-we-do/crime-threats/cyber-crime