How an FBI agent transformed Microsoft security

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There was only so much that Microsoft could do when it came to protection of the desktop, he noted. Products downloaded onto Windows like Adobe Reader have suffered security holes and been compromised, while the Conficker worm spread so virulently simply because many computers hadn’t been patched with the right Microsoft update.

“People blame Microsoft, because it is the stab against the side wall which people expect us to fix,” Gibson says.

The Police Central e-Crime Unit

Gibson said that the Police Central e-Crime Unit, which recently made its first arrests, was a ‘giant step forward’.

He said: “It sends a signal to organised crime that this country was no longer going to be a safe haven for their activities.”

Gibson said would also like to see ‘Police Community Support Officers’ doing work with the PCeU, with IT techies working hand-in-hand with law enforcement in their spare time, supplying extra expertise.

International law enforcement

Gibson said there was also light at the end of the tunnel because to international cooperation between law enforcement agencies, such as the the fall of Dark Market, which involved the UK, the US and others.

He said that countries had to work together, whether informally or formally. He said that there were countries with much corruption from bottom to top, but where people still wanted to make a difference and have a better life.

“You’ve got young people who are very educated in technology, but they can’t find work,” he says.

“Sometimes they find themselves in situations where they’ve been asked to work for somebody, and guess what – they didn’t know it was organised crime – and they aren’t going to get out, unless they are dead or [risk their] family be harmed.

“There’s always going to be the hacker cracker, but what we are dealing with now are those folks who want to do the right thing but get mixed up with [criminal] organisations.”

He adds: “That’s the problem and that’s where we come in with the robot networks... They develop small packets of code, getting people click on something such as spam, or a phishing email. Compromising a computer that you haven’t updated to blackmail and extort.”

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