Britain gets new cyber crime fighting unit as one in three are hit by web crims

It may not be as catchily-named as it's Big Apple-based supernatural entity nabbing equivalent, but the UK now has its own cyber crime busters in the shape of the National Cyber Security Programme's Cyber Crime Reduction Partnership.

Announced by the aptly-monikered security minister James Brokenshire, the CCRP has actually been in secret operation since the beginning of March and has seen 19 arrests made to date.

It'll come into full operation in October and will tackle all manner of cyber crimes from fraud to hacking and back again, with the Government reckoning that one in three people were a victim of some sort of online crime last year.

Threat level up

"We are facing a growing and ever more complex threat," Brokenshire said. "But our response to it has grown too and our ambition is to go further."

He then went on to add that the draft communications bill - you know, the one that wants to force ISPs to keep a record of anything and everything you do online in case the police want to check up on you - is vital when fighting the good cyber fight.

The draft bill is currently being completely reworked after the Lib Dems, Labour and a host of other sane people pointed out that the man on the web-street should still be entitled to some civil liberties and a soupçon of privacy.