Firms unite to fight cyber crime

Several IT firms in the West Midlands are leading the fight against hackers with the help of a computer game.

Serious Games in Coventry have teamed up with a cyber security specialist and a team of organisational psychologists from Aston University in Birmingham, to create software they hope will be used alongside business training.

Cyber crime is estimated to cost UK businesses thousands of pounds a day and is now ranked as one of the top four threats to national security, higher than a nuclear attack.

Tim Luft, managing director of Serious Games, and Michael Loginov, director at Information Systems Security Association, said using a game made the subject more interactive and helped people to understand the dangers of cyber crime.

Individuals can also be an easy target for hackers, but IT expert Dale Pearson, founder of Subliminal Hacking, created a virtual computer and recorded what the hackers did to his system before putting it on the internet as a warning to others.

He said he realised after a while he could have "a little play" with them.

Meanwhile the Malvern Cyber Security Cluster, a group of more than 45 small companies, has one common aim - to stop the cyber criminals.

Simon Wiseman, chief technology officer at Deep Secure, which is part of the group, said all the firms knew the problems and collaborated to keep fighting against the hackers.