UK police forces have spent a total of £1.3m on cybercrime training courses in the last three years, according to a new report from a think tank. The new Policing and Cybercrime policy paper, by Parliament Street, suggests that some 39,483 police staff and officers have undergone training across the UK.
In a report, as a result of making FoI (Freedom of Information) the think-tank suggests a national cyber training scheme for officers and staff, sharing of training resources and doing more to recruit police staff already with cyber skills.
North Wales Police topped the list with £375,488 on cybercrime training for officers and staff between 2015 and 2017. This included a dedicated five day ‘Main Stream Cyber Training’ course for 147 key staff, totalling £160,000; and a one-day cyber-crime input course for all new Initial Police Learning and Development Programme (IPLDP) recruits for 183 officers which cost £29,900. Some £52,300 was spent on a similar course for 68 CID officers.
West Mercia and Warwickshire Police submitted a joint response, totally £125,633; Lincolnshire stated it had spent £119,834, West Midlands Police £91,200 and Police Scotland on £83,121.
Sheila Flavell, COO, FDM Group, says: “With cyber-crime on the rise, it’s clear that all organisations are urgently seeking to recruit, train and equip staff with the latest security expertise and cyber skills. Whether it’s online courses or specialist programmes, it’s encouraging to see forces taking steps to improve IT skills of serving officers and staff. These skills aren’t only vital for modern policing, they are essential to support and protect businesses across the country. That’s why so much more needs to be done to address the UK’s chronic skills crisis, to ensure we have the highly skilled workers to protect companies and the public from malicious online attacks.”
As for detail, Norfolk and Suffolk police forces provided information on their combined spend of £71,100. This included sending 3,882 staff on a Cyber Crime and Digital Policing First Responder (MCCT1/NCALT) course. 147 staff members were sent on a digital media investigator course costs £6,500. £15,000 was also spent on an open source level 2 course for 87 members of staff.
South Yorkshire Police sent 71 officers on its Sy-Mainstream Cyber Crime training. Other courses it offered included on entitled Sy/Hp-Cyber Hacking Inside The Minds Online Criminals. The least spend came from the small by comparison Port of Dover Police which said none of its staff had been trained and no budget had been used on cybercrime training.
Comment
Laurie Mercer, solutions engineer at HackerOne said: “Legend has it that the reason why criminal Willie Sutton robbed banks was “because that’s where the money is.” Today it is not just our money that is accessed online, but our very identities. Given that we live in an age of digitization, it follows that criminals will become digital criminals. We all need to adapt to this new world. This is going to involve security awareness not only for executives and law enforcement officials but for all citizens.”
