South Yorkshire police officers investigated over alleged computer misuse

NEWS

8 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

It has been revealed that 56 police officers – including eight senior

staff – were investigated in South Yorkshire over the last four

years, for alleged misuse of computer systems. The investigation

came to light under a Freedom of Investigation Act (FoI) request

by the Yorkshire Post newspaper group, which found that, of

the 56 police officers investigated, 15 were given advice about

their behaviour, 10 received written warnings, four were placed

on management action plans and one officer resigned before

any proceedings had started. The FoI request also revealed that

around 400 police officers and civilian staff have left the service,

or been disciplined for computer misuse, over the last five years.

Alleged offences included unauthorised access to police computer

database information, through to the downloading of inappropriate

internet material.

News of the computer misuse, came as no surprise, said

security expert Tim Ellsmore, whose company 3ami, has supplied

audit, compliance and control technology to a number of

organisations, including police forces, across the UK. Ellsmore said

that protective monitoring of police systems is now necessary to

uphold the laws of a digital network “With more than 239 000

police officers employed in the UK, as well as larger numbers of

civilian staff, it’s inevitable that human nature will rear its ugly

head”, he said.

According to Ellsmore, police forces are working, and have

been working hard, to make true data accountability a reality

in the UK. The 3ami managing director went on to say that the

problem with those police forces that do not fully monitor the

activity on their computer networks have no real way of knowing

whether officers – or civilian staff – are misusing the data they

have access to.

They could, he explained, be forwarding that data to third

parties or even using the network to conduct personal business

when they should be working. Then, he went on to warn, there

are also the issues of viruses and malware, as well as hacker

attacks, attempting to subjugate data on the police computer

network, for usually criminal means.

3ami recently conducted a survey into senior police officers’

concerns about data security at UK police forces. The survey – taken

by senior police officers at a major conference last year – found

that all respondents were in favour of audit and controls on police

computer resources. Ninety-six percent said they believed abuse and/

or misuse of UK police systems occurred “frequently”. The survey

also found that inadequate staffing and the lack of an effective digital

audit trail were the two biggest barriers to investigating police officers

or staff members suspected of illegal or inappropriate computer

activity.

2010 will be the year of the Cloud says reportA report commissioned by one of the UK’s major business internet

service providers claims to show that 2010 will be the year of

cloud computing, but whilst many SMEs are gearing up for the

benefits of cloud facilities, few are also upgrading their internet

connections. The report, which is based on interviews with more

than 350 IT decision makers in UK SMEs, says that a sizeable 53%

will never adopt cloud technology. Interestingly, however, half of

the SMEs said they planned to be using cloud technology by the

end of 2010, with 13% already using the cloud today and 37%

planning to do so within 12 months.

Larger SMEs – defined as those with 50 or more employees –

appear to be the keenest to adopt cloud computing, with 66%

already using the cloud or planning to do so within 12 months.

This, says the report, is at odds with the general consensus that

it is the smallest companies, with the least IT legacy, that are

leading the charge to the cloud. As you might expect, whilst 35%

of respondents said in a similar poll 15 months ago that they

believed cloud computing would save them money, this figure has

now climbed to 51%.

Although many SMEs are not enhancing their security to support

the cloud, the good news is that more businesses are implementing

formal strategies for adopting the cloud; 29% this year compared to

13% previously.

According to Chris Stening, managing director with Easynet

Connect, when his firm conducted this research towards the end of

2008, it saw that the cloud was coming for SMEs. “While not quite

as fast as vendors would hope, it was certainly coming. By the end of

2010, half of SMEs in the UK will be using cloud computing in some

form or another”, he said.

Stening concluded that preparation is key for any business

undertaking such a radical change to their operations. He noted

that you wouldn’t, for example, relocate your offices to another

country without first checking out the local tax regimes, regulatory

frameworks, workforce quality, etc. “The same is true for businesses

migrating to the cloud”, he said.

Stening argues that SMEs should talk to their software and

services cloud providers about what services and guarantees are

available when they start moving more of their business into the

cloud. It is, he maintains, important to assess what proportion of your

business can be conducted in the cloud before assigning availability

to your internet connection.

SMEs, he notes, need to work out how many people will be

accessing the cloud services – and from where – before you negotiate

with your ISP or software vendor to move IT services into the cloud.

“Crucially, it is important to assess what the business impact would

be if you are unable to access these services,” he said.