The Metropolitan Police Service, which employs 42,000 officers and staff, dispatched more than 4,000 staff to attend so-called “cyber” training courses over the past two years. One e-learning course “Cyber Crime and Digital Policing – First Responder” was completed by 4,534 employees, with over half of attendees being student officers, and on another “Cyber Crime and Digital Policing: Introduction” course, again half of the attendees were new recruits.
The Metropolitan Police Service dispatched more than 4,000 staff to attend so-called "cyber" training courses over the past two years. The e-learning course "Cyber Crime and Digital Policing – First Responder" was completed by 4,534 employees. Over hal… https://t.co/Cqi7OpxO0T
— The Register: Summary (@_TheRegister) December 17, 2019
In light of the skyrocketing sophistication and growth of cybercrime, this is a great idea, even if introduced with a considerable delay. Many police and law enforcement officers have pretty modest cybersecurity and cybercrime investigation skills, oftentimes themselves falling victims to shrewd cybercriminals. Worse, some are even unaware of the most fundamental issues of cyber hygiene, unwittingly or recklessly breaking internal security rules and endangering their departments, or even breaking data protection laws.
I believe such measures are indispensable today, and all police offices across the globe should follow this laudable example set by the Met. To finance such requisite training, governments shall probably consider imposing a supplementary tax on the largest IT and e-commerce companies that make their windfall profits thanks to a rapid proliferation of the Internet. They are well apt to bear these costs, for them it would be pennies compared to impoverishing individual taxpayers. Cybersecurity companies should probably likewise consider offering some pro bono consulting or training services for law enforcement organizations, like we do at ImmuniWeb.