Tell it to Them Ed..

Silicon reports that Microsoft UK's chief security advisor, Ed Gibson, has attacked the government over what he claims is a lack of effective reporting channels for internet-related crime.

Speaking at the launch of a CBI report into online security for small and medium-sized businesses, Gibson said that while creating documents was all well and good, very few companies had any real notion of who they should report an electronic attack to.

He said: "I bet if I asked anyone in this room, 'Who would you report an electronic crime to in the police?', no one would know. We are ignorant of the size of the problem. There is a real lack of meaningful statistics."

Rejecting the offer of a microphone and choosing instead to stride up and down between the panel of experts and the audience of IT and business professionals, Gibson claimed that the government was not doing enough to facilitate the timely reporting of cyber crime.

Gibson said the decision to roll the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) into a new larger agency, The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), in April 2006 would actually make it harder for businesses to work out to whom they should report an electronic crime. Gibson also attacked the amount of funding the NHTCU has received since its creation in 2001, claiming it has declined annually.

The CBI report, called Securing Business Value Online, is specifically aimed at small to medium-sized companies.