(Photo: Twitter)
November 26, 2014
Police are encouraging members of the public to report cybercrime using a new national policing system known as ACORN, the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network.
“Cybercrime and online crime are traditionally areas where we see quite a significant amount of underreporting,” Detective Superintendent Brian Hay of the Fraud and Cybercrime Group said.
He said people felt embarrassed, or believed they may be wasting the time of police but this wasn’t the case.
“It is only by having these crimes reported to us that we can work to prevent these crimes and ensure our response is adequate and effective,” he said.
“The new portal will allow us to not only receive the information we need to investigate these matters appropriately, but also gather important information that can allow us to prevent others from falling victim and ensure Australia is not seen as an easy target for these offenders.”
ACORN is a joint project between the Attorney-General’s Department, CrimTrac, the Australian Crime Commission and law enforcement across the country.
Crimes that can be reported include any type of crime directed at computers or other devices (such as hacking), and crimes where computers or other devices are integral to offence (such as online scams or fraud).
“The majority of these crimes fall into the identity theft and malware or ransomware attacks on computers,” Det Supt Hay said.
“These types of crimes cost Queenslanders many millions of dollars and as such, they are crimes we are committed to preventing and investigating.”
Hacking, identity theft, online scams and fraud can all be reported via the ACORN website
