Categories: Cyber Crime

UK – A new GCHQ-NCA unit will catch pedophiles in the Deep Web

Prime Minister Cameron announced that a newborn cyber unit composed by officials from GCHQ and NCA will fight online pedophiles even in the Deep Web.

Prime Minister David Cameron has revealed that national intelligence agencies will join the efforts to track and arrest online abusers and pedophiles. The British Prime Minister announced that the British Intelligence will have greater powers for online monitoring of suspects.

British authorities warned that up to 1,300 children are exposed to online abuse from pedophiles, it is a moral and social obligation to fight this social evil.

Cameron explained the strategy of the British Government at the #WeProtectChildren online global summit in London, announcing the creation of a new unit composed by members from the GCHQ and the National Crime Agency (NCA).

One of the most difficult goals of law enforcement that operate against online pedophiles, is to track this category of criminals that makes large use of anonymizing networks like Tor.

The newborn unit will be involved in investigation on crimes that exploit the deep web, Cameron referring the anonymizing networks like Tor said that they act as “digital hiding places for child abusers.”

“The unit will receive £10 million next year to create specialist teams to find explicit content on the web. There are also plans to criminalize sexual comments sent to children on the internet by adults. The Prime Minister also cited cases in which security services were able to track UK citizens involved in pedophilic activities while using software designed to protect their identities.” reports RT.com news portal.

British security services claim to be very active in the fight of child pornography online, they have arrested more than 1,000 alleged pedophiles only the past year compared to 192 arrests between 2012 and 2013.

The law enforcement arrested suspect pedophiles adopting sophisticated web tracking methods,

British police have also warned that up to 1,300 children are vulnerable to abuse from pedophiles they may come into contact with online.

“GCHQ is using its world-leading capabilities to help the NCA reach into the dark web and bring to justice those who misuse it to harm children,” declared Director Robert Hannigan. “With the NCA, we are committed to eliminating digital hiding places for child abusers.”

Cameron explained that the new unit will benefit of a new technology that allows law enforcement to curb the sharing of illegal photographs and videos online. Additionally, organizations such as the Internet Watch Foundation will assist multinational internet firms including Google and Facebook to identify and block illegal images.

The British Intelligence will receive the support of organizations such as the Internet Watch Foundation and IT giants, including Google and Facebook, to identify and persecute the illegal activities.

“Every time someone chooses to view an online image or a video of a child being abused, they are choosing to participate in a horrific crime,” Cameron said. “Every single view represents that victim being abused again. They may as well be in the room with them.”

The noble intentions of the British Intelligence are indisputable, however, according to revelations made by Snowden, this kind of investigations can have serious repercussions on the human rights and support massive surveillance programs.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –  GCHQ , Dark Web)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

Google addressed 2 Chrome zero-days demonstrated at Pwn2Own 2024

Google addressed two zero-day vulnerabilities in the Chrome web browser that have been demonstrated during…

10 hours ago

INC Ransom stole 3TB of data from the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland

The INC Ransom extortion group hacked the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland and is threatening…

15 hours ago

CISA adds Microsoft SharePoint bug disclosed at Pwn2Own to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds a Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability disclosed at the…

20 hours ago

The DDR Advantage: Real-Time Data Defense

This is the advantage of Data Detection and Response (DDR) for organizations aiming to build…

23 hours ago

Finnish police linked APT31 to the 2021 parliament attack

The Finnish Police attributed the attack against the parliament that occurred in March 2021 to…

1 day ago

TheMoon bot infected 40,000 devices in January and February

A new variant of TheMoon malware infected thousands of outdated small office and home office…

2 days ago

This website uses cookies.