On Friday I was delighted to be one of the speakers at a well attended conference on Cyber Crime organised by the Conservative Women’s Organisation.
The conference took place at the welcoming Market Harborough Conservative Club and hosted by the CWO Chairman Rani Mahal. The star speaker was Kit Malthouse MP, Minister of State for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service. He gave a bravura performance, speaking about the challenges facing our police today. He covered the policing of cyber crime, where the criminal gangs are based and how they operate. He also covered the county lines drugs gangs and knife crime, always putting forward common sense methods in which the police could tackle these threats to our communities.
There then followed a delightful afternoon tea with sandwiches, cakes, tea and coffee.
After that it was my turn to take the floor. I spoke about how individuals could spot an attempt by cyber crime gangs to trick them out of money, data or information. It is not always easy to spot an on-line scam, and the crooks can be surprisingly sophisticated and cunning in targeting the vulnerable with their tricks. I finished off with a variety of tests for the audience, distributing emails, websites and the like to see if they could detect the fake and fraudulent.
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and I think I learned more from the audience than they learned from me.
