Detica Corporate Press Release RSS Feed

Wanted: cyber experts to defend UK online

2010-07-26T10:30:00+01:00

The UK’s first national hunt for future cyber security professionals launches today in central London. The Cyber Security Challenge UK is a series of online and face-to-face competitions designed by leading security, education and government organisations as a response to the worrying shortage of skilled professionals in the cyber security sector, and the growing challenge of how to increase the resilience of the UK’s online presence with our existing human resources.

The Challenge will identify the most talented individuals in the country capable of becoming our first line of defence against cyber attacks now and in the future. It will excite and inspire participants to consider a career as a cyber security professional. The very latest technologies will be employed to test the mettle of everyone from teenagers to IT professionals.

More than 30 prizes are on offer for successful candidates. All have been selected for their ability to help winners progress career opportunities in the cyber security profession. They include:

Bursaries for university courses – eg £3,300 funding towards an MSc Electronics & Security, Queen's University, Belfast
Places on top private-sector training courses – eg A two week placement on Detica Cyber Security Academy, places on Sans Institute training courses
Access to professional expertise and resources – eg opportunities to use the CREST penetration testing rig
Memberships of professional bodies – eg annual membership of the Institute of Information Security Professionals (IISP), the British Computer Society (BCS), and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA).

From this morning, anyone interested in cyber security can register online to participate in the 2010 Challenge and have a chance to be crowned the UK’s Cyber Security Champion at www.cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk.

The Challenge is being officially launched by The Rt Hon Baroness Neville-Jones, Minister for Security who said:

“Cyberspace is woven into the fabric of our society; it is integral to our economy, our communities and our security. Defending all of our interests in cyberspace is a relatively small cadre of talented and highly skilled public sector and private sector cyber security professionals. This pool of professionals must grow and the Cyber Security Challenge UK offers an innovative and exciting way of attracting talented individuals to take up rewarding careers in this field.”

The competitions

As part of the launch, two initial competitions are being unveiled. Each competition features:

A virtual competition where participants compete online
A face-to-face playoff for the most successful participants in the virtual stage.

The team or individual that performs best in the playoff will become the winner of that competition:

QinetiQ Network Defence Competition: This competition utilises QinetiQ’s exceptional knowledge of network defence and its world-class modelling and virtualisation facilities. It involves teams reviewing, administering and defending a simulated network against attacks from cyber security professionals.
SANS Institute and Sophos Treasure Hunt: The SANS Institute Security Treasure Hunt is an online game suitable for all ages and all levels of experience. Run on specific dates between September and December this year, and administered by a trained gamesmaster, participants will be challenged to identify security flaws on a dummy website and answer questions based on the issues they find. The competition takes the form of multiple choice questions allowing candidates to work at their own pace. Participants simply require a web browser; some creativity; and possibly some research on the Internet. The whole process takes less than two hours and the best six participants move through to the face to face stage being developed by Sophos.

Successful participants in each of these competitions will be invited to attend the Cyber Security Challenge UK Masterclass. This climax to the UK’s first Cyber Security Challenge is being developed by HP Labs and EADS Defence and Security as an opportunity to compete with, and against, other finalists from across the three competitions for a chance to be crowned the UK’s ultimate cyber security champion. The Masterclass will challenge candidates to demonstrate their technical, strategic, commercial, and interpersonal skills as they work in teams to cope with the challenges of managing and defending a business technology network in an accurately simulated commercial environment. They will face the same challenges a cyber security professional faces in the real commercial world.

In addition to these two competitions and the Masterclass, the Challenge will also be supporting the UK category of the Department for Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) Digital Forensics Challenge – which is running as part of the US Cyber Challenge. 22 UK teams are currently participating. The Challenge will be providing a prize for the winner of that category and will also invite the individuals from the winning team to participate in the Masterclass.

The Challenge is being sponsored by a broad group of renowned organisations in the fields of cyber security, education, industry and public sector. They include the Open University, Sophos, EADS Defence and Security, SANS Institute, Detica, QinetiQ and the Cabinet Office.

Quotes

"Our use of cyber space has increased to the point where it forms a key part of the critical national infrastructure - a reality that is being exploited for malevolent purposes with increasing sophistication and frequency. Detica’s security specialists are constantly innovating new approaches and technologies to ensure that the UK is well placed to address these determined cyber attacks, with our Security Academy fundamental to this work. It is vital that future cyber security professionals have the skills and tools to ensure the UK has the most resilient and robust cyber infrastructure possible. We are delighted to be involved in this important national initiative."
David Garfield, Chief Technology Officer, Detica

"We are calling on students, graduates and anyone with an interest in cyber security, to come forward and test their skills. The variety and excitement of the cyber security industry is one of the UK’s best kept secrets, it faces new, dynamic challenges everyday. The Challenge will demonstrate how important and exciting this profession is and help the nation's best, undiscovered talent achieve their cyber security career ambitions.”
Judy Baker, Director, Cyber Security Challenge UK

"The security of computer systems has never been more important - not just to companies, but to the many workers whose livelihoods depend upon them. The Cyber Security challenge gives everyone with an interest in computer security the opportunity to demonstrate and enhance their skills in a fun way. Our hope is that it will drive more talented people to join the security industry, as IT companies today are finding it difficult to find the right talent. Sophos hopes that initiatives like this will help build a pipeline for future security experts to join us in protecting against internet threats and hackers."
James Lyne, Senior Technologist at Sophos

“QinetiQ has teams of experts providing cyber security advice and services to governments and commercial organisations. One of the biggest challenges is to understand current and likely future threats in order to protect our customers. We also know how important it is to encourage the UK’s next generation of cyber security experts, so we’re delighted to be involved in the Cyber Security Challenge to identify new talent and help young people to pursue their career aspirations.”
Alasdair Rodgers, Security Lead, QinetiQ Consulting

“We are extremely excited to be a part of the Cyber Security Challenge UK. As founding sponsors we wanted to showcase UK expertise in cyber by collaborating in a Masterclass to ensure the challenge identifies new talent to further increase the UK’s capability. I relish the opportunity to see what the UK’s best can bring to the competition and I hope that EADS Defence & Security will be able to help support their career aspirations. If I’m impressed with what I see I will be offering them a job.”
Bryan Lillie, Head of EADS Defence & Security’s Cyber Security Centre UK

“The Cyber Security Challenge UK deals with issues spanning both education and technology. We see it as an excellent opportunity to continue our long-standing partnerships with industry to address the national challenges facing our workforce. Education institutions can only offer cutting edge skills to their students when they understand what the current challenges are, and the skills required by industry to address them. The Open University is committed to helping organisations to find innovative ways to deal with these skills gaps.”
Kevin Streater, Executive Director - IT&Telecoms, The Open University

“Cyber Security Challenge UK offers immense opportunities for students and professionals to make a significant and lasting contribution to our security and resilience. We are delighted to lend our support to the launch of such a competition at the Institute for Security and Resilience here in UCL. The Challenge so clearly attracts a rich diversity of talent, ready to innovate in order to sustain our resilience in an uncertain world.”
Rt Hon John Reid (Lord Reid of Cardowan), Chair of the Institute for Security & Resilience Studies

BT and Partners propose secure long-range radio for national smart meter rollout

2010-07-19T00:00:00+01:00

Due to cover 28 million homes and small business properties by 2020 or sooner, this multi-billion pound initiative is designed to reduce energy costs and lower Great Britain's carbon dioxide emissions by 2.6 million tonnes per year when the rollout is complete. Long-range radio has already proved successful in North America and offers substantial benefits in Great Britain.

BT is backing long-range radio after spending 18 months analysing the various communications options available to meet the needs of the smart metering initiative. Unlike mobile, it can provide truly nationwide coverage and dependable reception indoors. The fact it operates on dedicated licensed spectrum is also important as it is ideal in ensuring the security of supply and protection of consumer data while meeting the needs of the Energy Industry.

The Government will soon publish a prospectus that will provide details about the project and the possible commercial opportunities. The partners will review this document and will then formally launch their proposal in September. Their aim will be to offer a universal, dedicated, secure and resilient nationwide communications network to underpin the Government's plans for smart meters and subsequent smart grid applications.

Olivia Garfield, BT Group Strategy Director, said: "Smart meters will use telecommunications to deliver important environmental benefits and so BT is determined to be at the heart of the project. It is vital that any solution is designed for ubiquitous coverage of homes and is thoroughly secure and resilient. We believe that long range radio is the only technology to offer nationwide coverage and we will release more detail in a series of events in September."

"A communications network designed to meet the unique needs of all of Britain's utilities - electricity, gas and water - must be able to deliver universal connectivity and long-term resilience. And the only way to achieve this is through a dedicated network based on long-range radio. The collaboration of three of Britain's leading communications and security organisations provides further weight to this argument and provides the most effective way of delivering the government's target of rolling out smart meters to all homes in the shortest time possible," added John Cronin, Managing Director for Arqiva Wireless Access.

"The smart meter initiative will represent a significant addition to our critical national infrastructure and, as such, security and privacy must be key considerations in its design. We are working with the group to develop safeguards to ensure protection of the data, processes, communications networks and operational sites from risk and to demonstrate how the new infrastructure can be secured effectively,"said Martin Sutherland, Managing Director, Detica.

This partnership between three of the UK's leading communications network and IT services providers brings together an leading combination of design and operational experience in the delivery of national, large-scale, communications and IT infrastructure projects to meet the smart meter challenge.

“Enhanced security in the current economic climate can only be achieved through innovating information intelligence”, says Detica

2010-07-19T00:00:00+01:00

Detica today outlined its vision for achieving enhanced security, at lower cost, through groundbreaking information innovation. The company proposed a dual focus on exploiting and defending information and suggested looking at innovation in two key areas – delivering far more value from all information that is currently available and, equally, defending this information in the face of exposure to increasingly advanced, sophisticated and asymmetric threats, particularly from cyber space.

Across Government, the Armed Forces and in those businesses that are critical to our Nation’s success and security, it will be key to leverage existing data more effectively, use advanced analytics and take a data driven approach to enable information to work far harder than it has to date. Only by doing this will we be able to meet the contemporary threats at a time of increased pressure on resources.

Detica is exploring how this approach can be used to identify efficiencies in the support of military capability. If applied to the extensive volumes of supply chain, maintenance, failure and usage data that is collected on platforms, when enriched with other information - such as personnel involved - it is possible to identify previously unidentified root-causes of failure that can be used to reduce waste from the support chain and can bring significant cost rewards.

Tom Burton of Detica’s Defence Practice said: "Without collecting any new data, we have helped the British Army's personnel function to deliver direct benefits that were some ten times greater than the investment made in improving data governance and exploitation. On financial grounds alone, these returns should be sufficient motivation; when applied to missions where failure has a direct impact on life or national security, then the motivations are arguably overwhelming."

Detica also called for information intelligence innovation to focus on the protection and defence of information. In its work with a number of Government and commercial contracts, it has seen evidence that only by innovating will we be able to tackle the growing threats from cyber space that are increasingly on clients’ agendas and, more broadly, are having an impact on the economy as intellectual property and commercial information are stolen.

Henry Harrison, Technical Director at Detica said: “There has been an astounding period of innovation in the way we use and depend on information and communications systems - frequently known as "cyber space". Our adversaries are innovating at a furious pace and we have to fight innovation with innovation. Organisations have to accept that they are under siege and that determined attackers - whether criminals, activists or others - will ultimately succeed in penetrating their defences. “

Detica is working with its customers to put in place operations to catch these ‘cyber spies’ to help them detect infiltrations as early as possible so that they can be expelled before they have had time to identify and steal the most valuable information.

To find out more, click here to view our white papers on the themes above, including “Cyber attack: death by a thousand cuts” and “Readiness and sustainment: exploiting data to achieve greater mission success”.

Banks' anti-fraud measures a top concern for US customers

2010-07-15T00:00:00+01:00

According to a survey conducted by Detica NetReveal® and Ipsos MORI, 65 percent of US respondents desire more insight into the preventative measures their banks have implemented for detecting and combating fraud.

The survey polled a representative sample of more than 1,000 U.S. residents between the ages of 18 and 64. Participants were asked to rate their concerns on a number of fraud-related retail banking issues, including personal fraud risk, previous fraud experience and perceived responsibility. Among the respondents, 48 percent indicated they were fairly or very concerned that their bank accounts could be at risk of fraud. A majority, 61 percent, felt the responsibility for protecting their accounts from fraud fell predominantly with their banks.

In contrast, only 46 percent felt their banks had armed them with information and advice to keep their accounts safe from fraud. Of those who had a recent experience with actual or suspected account fraud, only 37 percent were completely satisfied with the way their banks handled the incidence.

Additionally, 33 percent felt more at risk to fraud than ever before, a percentage mirrored by those in favor of banks increasing charges to improve anti-fraud efforts.

"Customers are frequently unaware of the impact fraud can have on their lives until it happens to them said Wesley Wilhelm, senior analyst, Aite Group. "It's not uncommon for customers to have a limited understanding of all the various measures banks take to safeguard personal financial information. It is understandable that consumers would want as much information as possible while not wanting any security controls to be revealed to identity thieves. It is still the customer's responsibility to inquire about and understand how they can assist in implementing and enhancing the anti-fraud initiatives of their financial institutions. It is ultimately their accounts that are at risk and their assets and financial identity that are under attack.

The survey was commissioned by Detica NetReveal® to provide a representative snapshot of the U.S. retail banking fraud landscape and to highlight the importance customers give to effective fraud prevention solutions to protect them from the risk of financial crime.

About the research

Detica NetReveal® commissioned MORI Ipsos to survey a representative sample of 1,015 adults. Interviews, exploring attitudes towards banking fraud were conducted online between 16 April and 19 April 2010. A full copy of the research is available upon request.

About Ipsos MORI

Ipsos MORI is part of the Ipsos Group, a leading global research company. With a direct presence in 60 countries our clients benefit from specialist knowledge drawn from our five global practices: public affairs research, advertising testing and tracking, media evaluation, marketing research and consultancy, customer satisfaction and loyalty. For further information: http://www.ipsos-mori.com

About Detica NetReveal®

Detica NetReveal is a revolution in fraud detection. By uncovering the hidden relationships between people and data, Detica NetReveal® can detect both simple opportunistic and large-scale organized fraud currently hidden within an organization's systems. In addition, by running high-speed checks at the point of application, Detica NetReveal® can help companies to stop fraudsters before they become customers. For further information, please visit www.deticanetreveal.com

Arqiva announces that Detica is to join smart grid proof-of-concept network to examine cyber-security and safeguards

2010-07-06T00:00:00+01:00

Arqiva, the communications infrastructure and media services company, has today announced that Detica, the information intelligence and security company, is to join its smart grid proof-of-concept network in Reading. Detica is set to use its involvement in the network to look at how a national smart grid infrastructure might be secured from intrusion by external parties, such as hackers or cyber criminals.

Arqiva's smart grid proof-of-concept network, which is expected to go live later in July, utilises its long-range radio communications solution for smart meters and smart grids and will cover 80 square kilometres around Reading. The solution is built around Arqiva's nationwide portfolio of towers and masts, its dedicated licensed spectrum and the FlexNetTM technology provided by its technology partner, smart meter and grid specialist, Sensus.

Ian Watts, head of energy and utilities at Detica, said: "Smart meters and smart grids bring a tremendous potential to transform the energy industry in terms of significant cost savings and reductions in emissions. However, they also bring security risks that need to be proactively managed, and so it's critical to incorporate comprehensive security solutions from the outset to make these systems safe from attack. Unless adequate safeguards are put in place now, the smart grid could be hacked into and confidential data could be lost."

"Securing smart meters and the smart grid will require a combination of strong governance and standards, joined up processes, and of course cutting-edge technology.

"Arqiva's "secure by design' solution has been created with the specific needs of the UK's deregulated energy industry in mind so we are delighted to be working with them as part of their proof-of-concept network and helping to develop the security technology that will secure the grid for years to come."

David Green, programme director for smart metering at Arqiva, added: "Smart meters, and the longer term objective of creating a smart grid, promises real benefits to consumers and the energy sector alike. However, if these benefits are to be realised we firmly believe that a communications solution based on long-range radio offers the most effective solution to meet the government target of providing smart meters to every home in the UK by 2020. This should be dedicated to the specific needs of the UK's utilities " with the built-in benefits of universal connectivity, security and resilience."

About Arqiva
Arqiva operates at the heart of the broadcast and mobile communications industry and is at the forefront of network solutions and services in an increasingly digital world. The company provides much of the infrastructure behind television, radio and wireless communications in the UK and has a significant presence in Ireland, mainland Europe and the USA. There are three business units:

Wireless Access provides cellular, wireless broadband, voice and data solutions for the mobile communications, public safety, local government, and commercial markets. Arqiva is the largest independent provider of radio sites in the UK and Ireland. With its own spectrum, the company can provide complete mobile communications networks including backhaul links.

Terrestrial Broadcast provides transmission for all UK terrestrial TV broadcasters, including the new networks being built for the Digital Switch Over. Transmission is also provided for BBC Radio and most commercial radio stations, both analogue and DAB. The company owns and operates two of the six UK digital terrestrial TV multiplexes, enabling major media companies to bring their TV and radio services to Freeview.

Satellite & Media provides global communication platforms to enterprise, government and broadcast customers around the world. It owns and operates teleports at key locations including Los Angeles, Washington, London and Paris, as well as comprehensive satellite capacity, an international terrestrial fibre network and extensive media facilities. These enable Arqiva to provide world leading organisations with a comprehensive range of services to deliver their data, broadcasts and media across the globe.

Arqiva has its headquarters near Winchester and other major UK offices in London, Warwick, Buckinghamshire and Yorkshire. Customers include major broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV, BSkyB and the independent radio groups, major telco providers including the UK's five mobile network operators, and the emergency services.
www.arqiva.com

About Detica
Detica specialises in collecting, managing and exploiting information to reveal actionable intelligence. We use this capability to help government and commercial clients reveal intelligence, maintain security and strengthen resilience in today's complex operating environment. We also use our skills to assist clients with other information-intensive problems such as achieving regulatory compliance and understanding customer behaviour.

Detica is a BAE Systems company.

Detica and Detica Limited product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of Detica Limited in the UK and in other countries. Other brand and product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies. Detica Limited is registered in England under number 1337451 and has its registered office at Surrey Research Park, Guildford, England, GU2 7YP.

For further information, please visit www.detica.com

About Sensus
Arqiva's smart meter and grid technology partner Sensus creates innovative technology solutions that enable the conservation of water and energy. Sensus has led the discovery, development, and implementation of technologies for the energy and water industries for more than a century. Water, gas, and electric utility customers around the world benefit from the company's open, flexible products and solutions to help them optimize their resources " today and tomorrow.

With operations and service facilities on five continents and over 225 customers for FlexNetTM, its Smart Meter and grid solution, Sensus is a global leader in utility infrastructure systems and resource conservation.

Sensus is a privately held company employing almost 4,000 people worldwide. Nearly 1,000 of these are in Europe with offices or manufacturing facilities in Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Sensus headquarters are in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.

For more information, visit www.sensus.com.

Example: FlexNet™ and SmartPoint™ are trademarks of Sensus

The UK's approach to security needs radical reform says Detica MD

2010-07-01T10:30:00+01:00

Martin Sutherland, Managing Director of Detica, today called for a radical reform in the UK's approach to security. Speaking at the Homeland and Border Security Conference against the backdrop of public sector spending cuts and growing public unease about our "surveillance society', he outlined the opportunity to transform our approach to deliver security more efficiently and effectively, with less cost and reduced intrusion.

Mr. Sutherland called for a re-balance of the competing needs of security, privacy and economy and proposed that reform take the form of a proportionate approach to security which would use an intelligent risk-based methods to focus on where the risk is highest and remove further invasive analysis of those who pose little or no risk.

Mr. Sutherland said: "With all minds focused on reducing the fiscal deficit, we need to have a new debate on how we can maintain a proportionate approach to security at lower cost. There is a firm need for Government"in areas as diverse as immigration and border control, revenue collection and taxation, counter terrorism and countering other types of organised crime"to change its approach to security.

"However, at a time when the need to change has never been stronger, we have run out of money. The state is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, cuts to security, policing, immigration, vetting and barring or other places could allow criminals to get away with doing harm to our society. On the other hand, if organisations continue to use existing labour-intensive methods to attempt to strengthen their approach to security in all of these areas, they will be unable to deliver the magnitude of savings needed by the Treasury."

Mr. Sutherland continued: "Those entrusted with our security have access to vast amounts of data. Rather than collecting more, and spending more time and money having to analyse it, we have an opportunity to make a clean break"to use what we already have in a more intelligent way. We need to adopt new "lean' solutions and services that are more appropriate to the needs of the twenty-first century. This means rationalising and joining up data already held within government, to transform the way we exploit information and communications technology to enable dramatic improvements in the way security is delivered both in and across organisations"at lower cost and in a proportionate manner. By taking this approach, rather than a narrow focus on cuts, we can turn a crisis into an opportunity."

Mr Sutherland concluded by outlining a set of lean principles for smarter security in tighter times. These included an earlier focus on high-value targets to work out the root causes of their crimes, automation of labour-intensive manual processes and rationalisation of data, tools and processes across organisations.

The whitepaper 'Securing our future: a lean and proportionate approach' is based on Martin Sutherland's speech and is available here .

Detica's Management Board boosted with two new appointments

2010-06-16T00:00:00+01:00

Detica is boosting its senior leadership team. Chris Coker is appointed as Finance Director and is joined on the Management Board by Imam Hoque, who leads the successful Detica NetReveal software business.

Chris Coker will lead Detica's financial management, taking responsibility for financial planning and strategy. Chris joined Detica in 2007, performing a number of central and operational finance roles, including his most recent position as UK Finance Director. His work has included integration of UK and US acquisitions as well as working on tax and treasury strategies. Chris has long standing professional and business services experience, working previously at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Imam Hoque will continue to take overall technical and commercial responsibility for Detica NetReveal a suite of crime-busting social network analytics software. His promotion to Detica's Management Board recognises the international growth of Detica NetReveal and its increasing strategic importance in building Detica's global security presence. Imam is one of Detica's leading experts on technology innovation and heads up software research and development. Imam has over twenty years' experience in the IT industry and has spent the last five years working closely with the Government, insurance and banking industry in the UK to help fight fraud. Previously, he was Chief Technical Officer for Rubus.

Martin Sutherland, Managing Director of Detica said: "I am delighted to welcome Chris Coker and Imam Hoque to the Detica Management Board. They have both made an excellent contribution to Detica and their experience and knowledge puts them in a strong position to join me and the Detica Management team in realising the company's growth aspirations. I am looking forward to working with them both as we continue to develop and grow our business internationally, offering even better solutions and service integration for our clients".

Both Chris and Imam will report directly to Martin Sutherland, Detica's Managing Director.

Accelerating customer demand for Detica NetReveal enterprise fraud risk management solution drives market expansion

2010-05-26T00:00:00+01:00

MCLEAN, VA, MAY 26 2010: Due to significant and fast-growing U.S. license sales and implementations Detica has announced that it is opening a new office facility in McLean VA. This expansion will provide enhanced local support to organizations that want to leverage the Detica NetReveal fraud and risk management solution. To support this development, the company has appointed Richard Colven to head its U.S. operations.

The Detica NetReveal solution is a unique enterprise fraud, intelligence and risk management offering. In addition to traditional analytics, Detica NetReveal uncovers networks of suspicious behavior to reveal the hidden relationships between people and data that cannot be found using conventional detection systems. Detica NetReveal provides a single view of customers and scores individuals, applications and behaviors across an organization's entire portfolio of products and brands. By uncovering these connections, users are able to identify and prevent previously undetected fraud, significantly increase investigator efficiency, support regulatory compliance and dramatically reduce false positives.

The Detica NetReveal solution is already deployed globally at top banking and insurance companies and within many government departments. These organizations have selected Detica NetReveal to help them reduce criminal activities by catching cross-channel fraud that would traditionally remain undetected.

Richard Colven, Head of US Operations, says:

"Our customers realize that fraud is becoming more organized, complex, and sophisticated, and we are rapidly expanding our solutions footprint in the United States to meet that challenge. Detica NetReveal is proven in global deployments at many of the leading financial services organizations, and we look forward to expanding our existing client relationships and meeting the growing market demand in the U.S."

About Detica NetReveal

Detica NetReveal is a revolution in fraud detection. By uncovering the hidden relationships between people and data, Detica NetReveal can detect both simple opportunistic and large-scale organized fraud currently hidden within an organisation's systems. In addition, by running high-speed checks at the point of application, Detica NetReveal can help companies to stop fraudsters before they become customers.

For further information, please visit www.deticanetreveal.com

Detica, Detica Consulting LLC and Detica Limited product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of Detica Limited in the UK and in other countries. Other brand and product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies. Detica Limited is registered in England under number 1337451 and has its registered office at Surrey Research Park, Guildford, England, GU2 7YP.

Detica Limited, 2010. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

About Detica

Detica specialises in collecting, managing and exploiting information to reveal actionable intelligence. We use this capability to help government and commercial clients reveal intelligence, maintain security and strengthen resilience in today's complex operating environment. We also use our skills to assist clients with other information-intensive problems such as achieving regulatory compliance and understanding customer behaviour.

Detica is a BAE Systems company. www.detica.com.

Mission: design and build a mixed signal oscilloscope in eleven days

2010-05-04T00:00:00+01:00

Detica has tested second-year electronics students at Southampton University to the limit with this year's System Design Exercise (D4).

Detica challenged 65 students from the School of Electronics and Computer Science to design a portable mixed signal oscilloscope and to build a working prototype in 11 days. An oscilloscope is an item of test equipment for electronic circuits which displays voltage against time, a concept similar to heart rate monitors used in hospitals.

Students worked in teams in the scenario that they were part of a small electronics consultancy firm and were given precise design specifications. The device had to feature eight digital channels and one analogue, have a graphical display, be portable and robust, and able to operate in the field.

At the end of the eleven days, the teams had to make a competitive pitch for their design in front of the judges and their fellow students. The product was judged on a set of criteria including performance, price, aesthetics and innovation.

This is the first time that Detica has sponsored the System Design Exercise at Southampton University. Dr Matt Sacker of Detica, an alumnus of the School of Electronics and Computer Science and one of the judges said: "Detica's involvement in exercises like this gives students the opportunity to really understand what it would be like to work in a small electronics consultancy and how their coursework will directly apply to their future careers. This was a particularly testing project and I was really impressed with the innovative ways in which the students approached it. Detica is keen to encourage talented electronics students and we look forward to supporting the course again next year." By sponsoring the System Design Exercise at Southampton University, Detica aims to increase awareness of the company to talented electronics students as part of its recruitment programme.

Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, Southampton University added: "Having the involvement and support of a prestigious company like Detica was an excellent incentive for our students as they rose to the challenge of producing a complex device over a very short time frame. We already enjoy a strong relationship with Detica on a number of levels, but this was a new initiative and one that enabled our students to be creative in the context of commercial needs."

The winning team members were Tristan Bogle, Avadhi de Costa Tom Dell, Adam Malpass, Bekki Robinson, and Miraj Wanaguru. Each received 100GBP from Detica for their prize.

Detica warns that the 'over-sharing online generation' of office workers are putting organisations' data at risk

2010-04-26T00:00:00+01:00

Detica warns UK businesses that one of the greatest threats to their data is actually inside their own four walls from careless and ill-trained employees. The financial penalty for breaching the Data Protection Act (1998) recently increased a hundred fold, so businesses, now more than ever, need to take their data security seriously. Detica believes there is a three-pronged threat to personal data held by businesses from both outside and inside the organisation " maliciously entrepreneurial insiders are as much a threat as organised criminals where valuable personal data is concerned, not forgetting employees who work with this data everyday and have developed lax data management habits by sharing information too freely on-line.

Steve Daniels, Head of cyber security and information assurance at Detica explains how IT staff and system users who have access to the data everyday need to ensure it is looked after properly: "The real threat to a business's data comes from the "online generation' who grew up with the wild frontiers of the internet and social networking. They have seen an increasing acceptability in sharing personal information via social networking, blogging and online gaming sites that fits less well at work".

"This ethos of openness in which we increasingly operate is not necessarily a bad thing; however, it can lead to some people finding it hard to cross the cultural divide into a suitable rigorous personal data handling environment. This in turn can spell bad news for organisations if these employees do not grasp the importance of securing personal data."

Daniels comments: "If someone steals or loses personal data from the business it can not only mean a fine of up to 500,000 for breaching the Data Protection Act, but also lasting public damage for the company with customer desertion." With human error the greatest risk of all, it is vital for businesses to make changes to their data security processes quickly and effectively. Daniels believes that this doesn't necessarily mean huge extra costs to businesses but can in fact be as simple as ensuring that all IT and system users have dedicated training and guidance.

This training and guidance can only result in business data being secured if a lean approach to information assurance is adopted. Lean means that a rigorous focus is maintained on managing security, which can only be realised if the systems are simple for users to work with. Product-based solutions typically fail when people and physical considerations are then overlooked and complex new hardware or software are installed without considering who will be using them and how. Information security must not be seen as simply a "bolt-on' or a "hygiene factor' to the risks, as a look at the complete picture " as well as its individual components " is necessary to ensure maximised protection.

With Information Security Awareness Week taking place this week (26àµ¦ April 2010), Detica is warning businesses to look at protecting their data by focussing on the internal threat, as well as the external threats, when building its security improvement and compliance programmes. Detica has issued two white papers " the first, Data protection compliance: fix your roof while the sun is shining, helps to shed light on the ways firms are falling foul of data security and provides invaluable solutions that will also generate benefits beyond simply complying with the Act. The second, Cyber security and information assurance: time for a lean approach, considers the necessity of shaping the approach to information security in line with the business importance of, and risk to, the business.

Detica will be exhibiting at Infosecurity Europe at Earls Court, London this week, 27àµ¥ April on stand J102.

Dave Brown joins Detica's management board to strengthen reach in systems integration and managed services

2010-04-23T00:00:00+01:00

Detica has appointed Dave Brown as a new board director to lead the company's continued expansion in systems integration and managed services. In this newly-created post, Dave will continue to develop Detica's system and service delivery capabilities for its government and commercial client-base by leveraging its unique consultancy approach and intellectual property (IP)-led solutions.

Dave has over 25 years' experience in the telecommunications and media industry. He joins from Accenture where, as a senior partner, he led the systems integration business for the communications, media and high technology sectors.

Martin Sutherland, Managing Director of Detica said:

"I am delighted to announce that Dave Brown will lead the 500-strong Systems Integration and Managed Services (SI&MS) team. Dave brings a wealth of experience in leading large scale and high value client engagements. This new role will be key to achieving our strategic vision and goal of becoming our clients' most trusted solutions integrator".

Dave Brown, Head of Systems Integration and Managed Services at Detica added:

"Detica's SI&MS team has been making fantastic progress in this direction and my main focus will be building on that growth in depth and breadth both nationally and internationally. With the acquisition of Detica by BAE Systems in 2008, Detica is now in prime position to offer our clients differentiated solutions through our innovation, applied IP and delivery excellence."

A number of other senior appointments have also been made recently to strengthen the SI&MS businesses. These include Chris Drew, who joined in November from Fujitsu as Delivery Director responsible for overseeing the SI delivery portfolio, Piers Allison, Head of Managed Services and Matthew Samme, SI&MS Business Development Director.

Detica's Head of Forensics elected Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research

2010-04-20T00:00:00+01:00

Andy is one of Detica's foremost subject matter experts on Information Security and Cryptography and has co-authored "Enterprise Security Architecture", a definitive work on the subject. He is frequently called upon as an expert witness in civil and criminal trials and a few weeks ago helped the Hollywood film industry successfully win a case against Newzbin for infringing copyright. Andy is also a director and trustee of the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park.

Martin Sutherland, Managing Director, Detica said: "We are very proud that Andy has been awarded this prestigious appointment which recognises his contribution to cryptologic research. Cryptology is a complex science that, amongst many applications, underpins cyber security. Andy's work has helped Detica become a highly-respected leader in this field".

The IACR praised Andy "for his exemplary service as board member and president and for his contributions to the preservation of cryptology's heritage". Previously elected Fellows of the IACR include Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, Ron Rivest, and Adi Shamir, some of the main pioneers of public key cryptography.

In 2003, Andy received notoriety when he helped crack a 400-year old code used by Diana Dors to keep secret the whereabouts of her hidden fortune; and featured in a Channel 4 programme, "Who Got Diana Dors' Millions?'

Andy Clark, Head of Forensics, Detica added: "I feel very privileged to be elected Fellow of the IACR. It is a great honour to be in such esteemed company. Cryptology is such a pervasive science, many of us use it every day from web shopping to mobile phones and electronic transport ticketing without realising the security processing going on in the background. It is increasingly underpinning the digital society and its study and development is important to us all".

The International Association for Cryptologic Research web site is at www.iacr.org .

Joined-up information will unblock traffic congestion, says Detica

2010-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

In an era of increasing peak-time congestion, with transport operators struggling to cater for growing demand at a lower cost, Detica, the information intelligence and technology consultancy, today warns that the current fragmented approach to providing traveller information needs to be addressed if we are to keep the roads and railways moving.

Unveiling its position paper, "Unblocking the transport network: Joining the dots for smarter and safer travel', at The Great Transport Debate in London today, Detica's senior transport specialist, Grant Klein said: "Many parts of the UK's road and rail networks are now so close to capacity that even a minor incident can quickly tip them into chaos with knock-on delays for thousands of travellers. With the prospect of unpredictable journey times, travellers have little choice but to allow for the worst-case congestion scenario if they want to be sure of arriving on time."

Faced with this situation, transport operators are searching for new ways of unblocking and better utilising their networks. Key to this is giving travellers relevant and timely information to enable them to make better travel choices " when to travel, on what mode, on what route and with whom. "People now expect a "seamless' experience across information sources and the different media they encounter throughout the day," says Klein. "However, the information they currently receive from travel organisations does not live up to these growing expectations."

The problem is compounded by a fragmented UK transport industry where deregulation has created numerous service operators, each with their own systems to manage and objectives to achieve. Even within transport modes there are operational silos where the department best placed to collect information on how a service is operating is not the one who provides that information to travellers.

Since major infrastructure investment is not an option, and transport spending is generally being squeezed, equal doses of innovation and pragmatism will be needed to join up the industry. A key challenge will be to agree on the specific roles and responsibilities of the industry players involved along the information chain. Klein comments: "One could argue that an infrastructure operator should focus on data collection, while information service providers should take care of data enhancement and presentation. Where we need greater clarity is in the middle of the chain, namely collating and interpreting data. The current spaghetti of connections and conflicting information results in confused and inconsistent messages being communicated to the travelling public".

The solution, according to Klein, is to combine regulation, to ensure a high-quality common pool of data, with liberalisation to encourage its exploitation by private sector information wholesalers and retailers. "The speed and inventiveness shown by mobile phone software developers to "mash up' public transport data with online mapping and property databases to create new information services has shown the way", comments Klein. "If we can get to the situation where there is a revenue stream attached to the data being supplied by transport operators, competition in the marketplace will create pressure to maintain quality and consistency " and to innovate and keep pace with consumers' demands."

Joining up journey planning and service running information will help travellers make better and more informed choices and so help unblock congested transport networks. But there are other benefits to be gained. Over and above their primary duty to provide a service to travelling customers, all players involved in the transport industry need to protect their services from accidental or deliberate disruption. Klein says: "By joining up the data, infrastructure operators can mitigate against incidents caused by weather, accident or criminal intent. Service operators can ensure those misusing or abusing the system or fraudulently obtaining tickets are deterred or caught. And information service providers can monitor and investigate activities that could lead to transport services being compromised or disrupted."

Klein concludes: "If we don't address this fragmentation issue then passengers will continue to distrust transport information and make poor travel decisions. But if data can be joined up properly, travellers will come to trust its accuracy and completeness, and this will unlock a change in traveller behaviour and attitudes to different transport modes. Travel choices will be more informed and the networks will be more balanced. And the travelling environment will become safer and more resilient."

Copies of Detica's position paper, "Unblocking the transport network: Joining the dots for smarter and safer travel', can be downloaded here

Detica wins key role on Government software application solutions framework

2010-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Detica has won a position on the coveted software application solutions framework agreement issued by Buying Solutions, the national procurement partner for UK public services. In winning the place, Detica demonstrated its ability to act as prime contractor for projects of significant scale and scope and was measured against key criteria which included capability, capacity, policies, processes and quality management.

Within the software application solutions framework category, Detica bid for four Lots and was successful in each. These are bespoke applications, CRM/case management, information management, web design and content management. This opens the door for the firm to deliver solutions to the public sector over the next two years. The win builds on success last year where Detica secured a similar position on the ICT consultancy and delivery services framework agreement.

Theo Hildyard, Framework Manager at Detica comments: The software application solutions category is essential to delivering the efficiencies and savings required by the public sector now and in the future. We look forward to bringing our 30-year expertise of working with Government to develop innovative and mission-critical solutions.

The win follows a highly competitive bid process that began in May 2009.

Collaboration is key to security of smart meters scheme says Detica

2009-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Detica is urging the many stakeholders across the UK energy market to collaborate and manage the potential security issues related to smart meters, before the 20 billion scheme rolls out from 2012 onwards. In an address to the smart metering forum in London today, Detica argues that the risks associated with the scheme can be managed but only if addressed early and in a unified manner.

Steve Daniels, Head of Cyber Security and Information Assurance at Detica explains: With new technology and operations comes new risks. Like the Internet, the smart grid could be hacked, and confidential customer data might be lost or new vulnerabilities to crime may be created, unless adequate safeguards are put in place. Energy smart metering is perhaps the biggest change to the critical national infrastructure in more than a decade, and the energy market already has many stakeholders across Government, regulatory bodies, utilities companies, generators and other third parties. Engaging them all is vital and we believe that a single sponsoring group needs to exist to coordinate the scheme.

Daniels continues: Security is everybodys problem in the smart metering landscape. Whilst each member of the ecosystem has a critical role to play, coordinated governance, strategy and solution design will also be needed to ensure that weaknesses are not introduced in the hand-offs between these groups, or by the technologies involved.

Click here for the latest Detica whitepaper entitled Securing smart meters: getting it right first time

Detica launches first solution to measure the scale of UK illicit file sharing

2009-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, has launched Detica CView, a powerful tool to measure copyright infringement on the internet. Detica today announced that Virgin Media, will be the first ISP to trial the solution as part of the technological platform for its planned music service.

Detica CView will help the UKs ISPs and creative industries to understand the level of digital piracy in the context of new commercial services and piracy measures. It has the potential to measure file-sharing across all UK ISP networks, paving the way for ISPs, the creative industry and the government to better collaborate, understand and respond to the digital piracy challenge as outlined in the Digital Britain report.

Detica CView applies high volume, advanced analytics to anonymous ISP traffic data, and aggregates this information into a measure of the total volume of unauthorised file sharing. The Detica CView tool meets stringent consumer security design principles to protect privacy and is powered by a fully automated, closed system which does not identify individuals or store their data.

Andy Frost, Director of Media at Detica says: The Digital Britain report set out some bold targets to reduce illegal file sharing on ISP networks, but until now measuring the extent of the problem has been based on conflicting consumer surveys and speculation. We hope the launch of Detica CView will pave the way for stronger collaboration between ISPs and the media industry, by enabling all parties to more accurately measure the success of shared initiatives, reduce digital piracy and provide an unparalleled level of accuracy.

Jon James, Executive Director of Broadband at Virgin Media comments: "Understanding how consumer behaviour is changing will be an important requirement of Virgin Media's upcoming music offering and, should they become law, the Government's legislative proposals will also require measurement of the level of copyright infringement on ISPs networks. Detica's CView technology potentially offers a non-intrusive solution which enhances our understanding of aggregate customer behaviour without identifying or storing individual customers' data."

Conventional data mining techniques are hitting a ceiling warns Detica as it addresses RSA Europe security conference

2009-10-20T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the information intelligence specialist, has warned that the effectiveness of conventional data mining techniques for detecting fraud and other serious crime is fast being eroded by the volume, speed and complexity of the data they have to process. Instead it argues that next generation data mining techniques such as social network analysis need to be used in order to cross-references data from multiple sources to identify patterns of links that are indicative of organised criminal networks.

Addressing the annual RSA security conference today, in a presentation entitled The end of data mining? Surviving the digital tsunami, David Porter, one of Deticas senior security experts, explains: Although criminals have been quick to exploit the benefits of the digital revolution, so too have those responsible for their disruption. Both governments and large corporations use powerful data mining tools to help detect fraud and other serious crime.

Porter continues: However, there is now real concern that the explosion in data volume, complexity and speed is outstripping our ability to make sense of it. This growing digital tsunami means that conventional approaches to data mining developed over the past few decades are hitting a ceiling. The answer is to embrace next generation data mining methods such as social network analysis and also re-appraise the role that human intelligence, imagination and experience play in detecting security breaches. By substituting brute-force data interrogation with a smarter, more collaborative human-machine approach we can get to grips with todays fast-moving security threats more quickly.

The conference is being organised by RSA, the Security Division of EMC, with the support of the security industry. Originally launched in 1991 as a forum for cryptographers to share the latest knowledge on Internet security, the RSA Conference is today helping to drive the information security agenda worldwide with annual industry events in the U.S., Europe and Japan, creating opportunities to tackle the most important IT security issues through first-hand interactions with experts in the field.

David Porter is speaking at the event at the Hilton London Metropole as part of the Business of Security conference track. Further details about the conference are available at: http://rsaconference.com/2009/europe/index.htm

About Detica
Detica specialises in collecting, managing and exploiting information to reveal actionable intelligence. It uses this capability to help government and commercial clients reveal intelligence, maintain security and strengthen resilience in todays complex operating environment. It also uses its skills to assist clients with other information-intensive problems such as achieving regulatory compliance and understanding customer behaviour.

By combining technological innovation with in-depth industry knowledge, Detica has developed a range of world-class solutions centred on its expertise in intelligence, security and resilience. This is backed up with over thirty years experience of developing solutions to some of the most complex security problems. Deticas business and technical consultants offer a range of core services from strategy formulation through people and process change to the development, delivery and support of software and hardware technology. Deticas understanding of todays information-intensive challenges has also led it to develop a range of specialist services and products based on its unique intellectual property.

Detica delivers projects of significant scale across government and commercial markets in the UK, US and continental Europe. Its principal clients are government agencies responsible for intelligence, security and resilience. It also assists civil government and commercial organisations with a critical national infrastructure remit. Deticas UK government clients include: Home Office, Ministry of Defence, Borders Agency, HM Revenue & Customs, Metropolitan Police and Department for Transport. Its US government clients include: Department for Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service. Deticas commercial clients include: HSBC, Nationwide, RBS Insurance, Lloyds of London, Financial Services Authority, Turquoise, Thomson Reuters, BT, Vodafone, Cable & Wireless and 3. Detica has offices in London, Gatwick, Guildford, Gloucester, Washington DC and Columbia. For further information, please visit www.detica.com.

ISPs and public need to stop playing the ID 'blame game' and take shared responsibility for online security says Detica

2009-10-16T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, is urging ISPs and consumers to stop blaming each other for ID fraud and accept shared responsibility for online security. In National Identity Fraud Prevention Week, Detica is calling for ISPs to do more to protect their users and for consumers to take a greater degree of responsibility for their own internet security.

Mark Dampster, Head of Business Development for Detica StreamShield®, explains: The fact that a recent, high-profile email security breach was able to occur just demonstrates the huge gaps in cyber security that we still face. To make ourselves safer we must get past trying to assign blame or responsibility to one group - it is the shared duty of ISPs and computer users to ensure online security and a combined effort will make our cyber resilience much more robust.

Detica believes that ISPs need to do more to fix systemic faults and weaknesses and provide a secure environment for consumers. This should include screening emails and removing spam (including phishing emails) and malware, such as key logging software before they reach users. The same technology that scans emails can also monitor real-time browsing so that a user is prevented from accessing a malicious website or downloading an infected file. Technologies like Deticas StreamShield®, have the capability to provide ISPs with this comprehensive cybersecurity armoury.

Equally, Detica argues computer users must also take more responsibility for their own security whilst online and exercise greater common sense. This must extend beyond simply keeping anti-virus software and system patches up to date, to encompass being wise to tricks and scams and having a secure approach to social networking and password protection. For instance, passwords need to be changed regularly, not used across different websites and kept safe offline.

Dampster says: Online fraudsters are increasingly using \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'soft\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\' psychological techniques that exploit fear, greed, ignorance and haste. Tricking a human being can be a lot easier and more fruitful than hacking secure technology. Users still need to think safety first and use common sense. For instance, legitimate organisations do not ask their customers to confirm their details. Why would they if a customer is already on their database?

Similarly, users need to think twice about the level of information shared on social networking websites and never give phone numbers or addresses out. Social networking sites are by their very nature insecure since their business model is based on broadcasting as much information as possible to the greatest number of interlinked people. Its little wonder the crooks are exploiting these sites. People need to consider whether they really need to let the world know when they are on holiday or give information out that may be confidential to their job function. Just because somebody may happen to be a friend on Facebook, this doesnt mean they or someone linked to them wont misuse this information. Also personal information can be accessible from search engines, so it is important to check the privacy policy of social networking websites.

Dampster concludes, By recognising that cyberspace is shared territory where we all have responsibilities for security, we can ensure the internet is as safe as possible. This not only protects consumers, but opens up great opportunities for ISPs to add value to consumers and gain a competitive edge.

Notes to editors

About StreamShield®
StreamShield® is a product division of Detica, the specialist business and technology consultancy that helps government and corporate clients reveal intelligence, maintain security, manage risk and strengthen resilience in today\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s complex operating environment. StreamShield® is the first platform in the world to provide integrated, Internet-based protection for email, web and other real-time internet applications using unique technology that delivers unrivalled performance. The platform affords ISPs the ability to offer robust and effective content security services such as parental controls, e-mail cleansing, child protection, anti-malware, anti-phishing and application firewalls, without the need for additional hardware or software whilst providing subscribers full control and management of their service. For more information, please visit www.streamshield.com.

Detica is a BAE Systems company. BAE Systems is the premier global defence, security and aerospace company, delivering a full range of products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology solutions and customer support services. With approximately 105,000 employees worldwide, BAE Systems\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\' sales exceeded £18.5 billion (US $34.4 billion) in 2008.

For further information, please visit www.detica.com.

IWF Awareness Day 2009 - Public reports help remove child sexual abuse images in UK and around the world

2009-10-14T00:00:00+01:00

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is marking its third Awareness Day today (Wednesday 14 October) with the release of new data. More people than ever are using its Hotline to report potentially illegal content on the internet and the UK is leading the way in removing child sexual abuse images.

Despite receiving over 27,000 reports (a 5% increase on the same period last year) only one in five (5742) were confirmed by the IWF as images of child sexual abuse. This figure has been falling for three years suggesting a decrease in the availability of this content. Almost all of these images (over 99%) were traced to servers outside the UK. In these circumstances, the IWF acts immediately to inform our partner Hotline and law enforcement agencies in the relevant country to get the images removed and those responsible investigated.

As a result of consistent efforts by the IWF and the internet industry, it is now extremely rare for child sexual abuse images to be on UK websites. When they are, the IWF works in partnership with the hosting provider and the police to have them removed. During the first three quarters of this year, the IWF has issued 25 notices to companies in the UK about the abuse of their networks for the distribution of these images. Each notice was quickly complied with and every identified instance of online child sexual abuse content in the UK was removed within a day of notification.

Eve Salomon, IWF Chair, said: With the help of our Hotline, the UK has an excellent record in eradicating child sexual abuse images on the internet in partnership with 35 other Hotlines around the world and with the support of our 100 industry members. These websites are reducing in number globally and where they are sited in the UK, they are removed extremely quickly.

If you stumble across child sexual abuse images, its crucial you report it to us. We are focussed on the swift removal of these images and helping the international effort to bring those responsible to justice and rescue children from sexual exploitation. Your reports to our Hotline really do make a difference.

IWF Awareness Day is supported by many of the organisations 100 member companies and partners who unite to help publicise the UK Hotline and the importance of the IWFs work. In 2008, Awareness Day led to increased reporting to the Hotline and an 18% increase in awareness of the IWF amongst UK internet users. The IWF hopes to increase that this year.

To report a website or for more information the about IWF, please visit www.iwf.org.uk.

Notes

IWF research shows nearly 1 in 20 UK adult internet users (or 1.5 million people) say they have been exposed to child sexual abuse images

This research also indicates that over three quarters of those UK adult internet users who say they have stumbled across child sexual abuse images are unsure how to report them

The majority of online child sexual abuse images identified by the IWF depict the most severe levels of sexual abuse - the abuse of child victims under 10 years old - and are made available on pay-per-view commercial websites

It is extremely rare to trace child sexual abuse content to the UK

Internet users should not deliberately seek out child sexual abuse images in order to report to the IWF

About the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)

The IWF was established in 1996 by the UK internet industry to provide the UK internet Hotline for the public and IT professionals to report potentially illegal online content within our remit and to be the \'notice and take-down\' body for this content. We work in partnership with the online industry, law enforcement, government, the education sector, charities, international partners and the public to minimise the availability of this content, specifically, child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK.

We are an independent self-regulatory body, funded by the EU and the wider online industry, including internet service providers, mobile operators and manufacturers, content service providers, filtering companies, search providers, trade associations and the financial sector.

We work with UK government to influence initiatives developed to combat online abuse and this dialogue goes beyond the UK and Europe to ensure greater awareness of global issues, trends and responsibilities. We work internationally with INHOPE and other relevant authorities and organisations to encourage wider adoption of good practice in combating online child sexual abuse content and to promote inclusive and united global responses to this dynamic, cross-border criminality.

Contacts

Sarah Robertson, IWF, 01223 237700, 07929 553679, sarah@iwf.org.uk

Detica's international cyber security reputation expands with visit from South Australian Premier

2009-08-25T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the information intelligence specialist, yesterday hosted the Honorable Mike Rann, Premier of South Australia at its London office. As part of their visit to the UK, Premier Rann and Andrew Fletcher, Chief Executive of Defence SA, received a demonstration of Deticas capabilities and expertise in the cyber security sector.

Premier Ranns visit closely followed Gordon Browns high-profile tour of Detica in July 2009, after he announced the launch of the UKs first Cyber Security Strategy. Like the UK Prime Minister, Premier Rann and his colleagues received an update on current cyber security threats and a demonstration of the companys cutting-edge cyber security solutions in NerveCentre, Deticas state-of-the-art demonstration facility. The VIP visit comes nearly a year on from when Detica joined BAE Systems as a key part of the Groups growing focus on global security, especially in the US, Australia and UK. Detica has taken a leading place at the forefront of BAE Systems cyber security efforts.

Martin Sutherland, Managing Director of Detica, said: We are hugely honoured to host Premier Rann and to have the opportunity to discuss the challenges associated with cyber space and demonstrate the innovative technological solutions that Detica has pioneered to make cyber space a safer place. As a BAE Systems company, we are growing our capabilities to meet this challenge and we are delighted to see our thought leadership on this subject is becoming increasingly visible on the international political stage. By its very nature, cyber security is a global issue and requires significant international engagement, cooperation and commitment from world leaders to combat the critical risks we all face.

Premier Rann said: It was extremely interesting to tour Detica and hear the companys thoughts on the emergent challenges in cyber security. While the Internet can bring significant benefits to the global community, it can also facilitate significant threats such as serious and organised crime. Cyber security is becoming an increasingly international issue that we must address in a balanced way to deliver effective services to citizens and customers while protecting them from harm.

As part of the demonstration of its cyber security solutions, Premier Rann received a briefing on cyber security and the emerging challenges. He was also shown the impressive capabilities of Deticas market leading solutions, with a demonstration of Detica NetReveal®, groundbreaking crime-busting software that uses social network analysis to fight fraud and serious crime across the insurance, financial services and government sectors. This was showcased alongside Detica StreamShield®, which uses ultra-high performance technology to provide integrated, Internet-based protection for email, web and other Internet applications in order to make the Internet a safer place for everyone.

Premier Ranns visit to Detica in the UK was arranged by BAE Systems Australia, which has its headquarters in the Premiers state of South Australia.

Cyber security risk to smart utility meters must be addressed now, warns Detica

2009-08-17T01:00:00+01:00

Detica, the information intelligence specialist, today warns that the UK Governments environmental initiative to install smart utility meters into every home and small businesses could present a national cyber security risk unless adequate safeguards are put in place from the outset. The business and technology consultancy outlined its concerns in its response to a consultation from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), arguing that retro-fitting a cyber security solution into smart metering will be risky, ineffective and costly.

The UK Government recently announced its intention to fit every home and small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) in the UK with smart utility meters for gas and electricity by 2020. Ian Watts, Head of Energy and Utilities at Detica, feels lessons should be learned from the experience with smart meters so far. There are already around 40 million smart meters in use worldwide and, even at this early stage, we have seen a number of security breaches. These have included insecure meters, hacking of customer details, denial of service attacks and suspected infiltration by foreign intelligence services.

Watts continues: The utilities network has been defined by the Government as a key part of the Critical National Infrastructure. The impact of any large-scale power cut could not only put peoples lives at risk but be potentially paralysing for the economy. Whilst there are many potential benefits of smart meters that justify their introduction, we must be aware it also brings new risks and should therefore design in security from the outset to guard against this. Cyber security safeguards should be an integral part of the design both of the meters themselves and the network supporting it, in order to manage these new threats effectively.

In the paper Detica presented to DECC Smart Metering for Electricity and Gas the company outlines recommendations to ensure that smart meter security is handled properly. It argues that the security approach should take a wider view of network risks and focus on proactive threat monitoring in order to identify new cyber security threats before they can compromise the smart meter infrastructure. These mechanisms need to be sophisticated enough to detect threats from what at first may appear to be normal activity.

The paper also stresses the need to establish strong governance, such as the formulation of standards and policies, development of processes and technology, training of users and ongoing compliance audits. In particular, Detica backs government proposals for a Central Communications Model to serve as a single nationwide body with overall responsibility for coordinating the smart meter infrastructure and enforcing standards, policies and processes.

Watts concludes: The potential risk to national cyber security from not adequately securing smart meters or not responding to public concerns whether they be founded or unfounded is too significant to ignore and merits urgent action from utilities companies. But inaction, warns Watts, also presents these companies with an additional business risk. The surge in customer information received will provide priceless insight into customer behaviour and offer the opportunity to create tailored energy tariffs to help smooth out peaks in energy demand and respond to new customer needs. Utility companies that fail to exploit the opportunity hidden within that secured data will see themselves left behind as competitors and new market entrants quickly take the advantage.

For a full copy of Deticas response to DECC, please click here.

Detica solves regulatory headache of storing communications data cost-effectively with launch of Detica DataRetain

2009-08-12T00:00:00+01:00

As European Communications Service Providers (CSPs) come under increasing pressure to meet new laws to retain communications data and support the fight against serious and organised crime, Detica, the information intelligence specialist, today launches Detica DataRetain, a secure, fast and cost-effective compliance solution that enables CSPs to store and access billions of data records quickly and securely.

A new European Parliament Directive will require mobile and fixed line CSPs to retain records of all telephone calls and internet data for up to two years. CSPs will need to provide law enforcement and government agencies with these records quickly and confidentially, sometimes in a matter of minutes. CSPs will also need to preserve evidential integrity and comply with data protection legislation. As the Directive will soon become law across the EU, CSPs need to move swiftly to comply.

Simon McHattie, Director of the Interception & Compliance Business Unit at Detica, believes this presents a considerable challenge: Although most CSPs already collect the required data records, they tend to be spread around different computer systems. Most CSPs will set up and maintain a separate database, which will need to have the capacity to store a considerable amount of data tens or even hundreds of billions of records. This could become extremely expensive if they use conventional data warehousing technologies. Over and above the significant hardware and software costs, there will also be a sizeable recurring bill for office space, energy usage and staffing.

Detica DataRetain offers an innovative solution to the data retention compliance challenge. By combining proven data compression software with low-cost, off-the-shelf, small footprint and energy-efficient hardware, Detica DataRetain enables CSPs to store and access billions of data records quickly and securely. It also offers easy integration with existing industry and law enforcement technology operations. Workflow management features can be easily configured to adapt to a CSPs business processes, forming a seamless interface between law enforcement agencies and CSP police liaison units.

McHattie says: CSPs have a simple decision to make when it comes to data retention: re-use expensive, generic, over-specified data storage technology or choose a streamlined, low-cost compliance solution that integrates technology with workflow in order to achieve significant operational efficiencies. It should be an easy decision to make.

Detica DataRetain has been developed in close co-operation with several leading CSPs and government agencies in the UK. It is the latest in a range of world-class specialist products from the business and technology consultancy such as the award-winning Detica NetReveal fraud detection solution that are the fruits of over thirty years experience of developing solutions to some of the most complex security problems.

RBS Insurance and Detica NetReveal® win prestigious industry award

2009-07-30T00:00:00+01:00

RBS Insurance, in conjunction with Detica NetReveal®, the market-leading fraud detection solution, has been awarded the 2009 British Insurance Award for Technology. The award was announced at the industry’s showcase event for top-class performance and innovation at the Royal Albert Hall earlier this month.

In making their decision, the judges looked for evidence of greater efficiency, better customer service, lower error rates and effective implementation within agreed budgets and timetables. RBS Insurance and Detica NetReveal® were judged to be the clear winners. As the first insurance company in the world to integrate Detica NetReveal® with its legacy claims handling system to score claims in real-time, and to uncover organised fraud networks across different product lines, RBS Insurance has transformed its fraud prevention operations.

Recent years have seen a significant increase in both opportunistic and increasingly sophisticated organised insurance fraud. Bogus and inflated insurance claims and staged motor accidents cost the UK industry, and therefore policyholders, over £1.5 billion per annum. In March 2007, RBS Insurance embarked on an initiative to develop a market-leading, world-class fraud detection capability. In 2008, following an initial ‘proof of concept’ exercise, the company identified Detica NetReveal® as the most effective solution in the market. Since deploying the system, RBS Insurance has benefited from a significant increase in claims correctly flagged as fraudulent as well as a rise in the amount of fraud identified. It has also achieved significant gains in investigator productivity.

\\\"By deploying Detica NetReveal® we have positioned RBS Insurance at the forefront of the insurance industry in terms of our fraud detection and prevention capability\\\", comments Allan Clare, Director of Financial Crime at RBS Insurance. \\\"By identifying fraud that previously could not be automatically detected — including rapidly-mobilising, organised fraud networks — we will ensure RBS Insurance remains a safe place for our customers and suppliers to do business.\\\"

\\\"We are delighted to have been able to help RBS Insurance win this prestigious industry award\\\", comments Andy Cobb, Director of Business Development for Detica NetReveal®. \\\"This demonstrates once again that Detica NetReveal® is peerless in its ability to deliver significant business value to our customers. The independent adjudicators of The British Insurance Awards stated clearly that our detection models are the best in the business. They enable our clients to detect more fraud, reduce false alarms and settle the honest claims faster.\\\"

Voicemail hacking is just the tip of the mobile phone security iceberg, says Detica

2009-07-10T00:00:00+01:00

As the public debates the illegal hacking of mobile phone voicemails, Detica, the information intelligence specialist, today warns this is just the tip of the iceberg as the increasing use of advanced smart mobile phones and PDAs poses additional security risks to owners. It argues that greater public awareness of the risks and mobile phone security measures available is urgently needed.

Breaking into mobile phone voicemail boxes is incredibly easy once you know the password, but most people are simply not aware of the risks or even that its possible to dial into their mobile voicemail boxes remotely, says David Porter, Head of Security and Risk at Detica. Although this is a simple crime to commit, it is also simple to counter with basic security measures. An incredible number of mobile phone users do not change their password from the default setting. They should do this and choose a voicemail password that is near-impossible to guess. This password should be changed regularly, especially if the voicemails are very confidential.

Detica warns that voicemail hacking is just one part of a much wider security problem, associated with the rise of sophisticated, new generation mobile phones. Smart phones offer a host of web applications, from email to mobile banking, meaning they store an enormous volume of sensitive data which brings additional security risks to owners and businesses.

Detica believes that part of the solution is a more stringent use of basic security measures, such as protecting phone data with encryption and hard-to-guess passwords, as well as setting phones to wipe their memory should invalid passwords be typed repeatedly. However, it warns the effectiveness of these measures can only go so far and while manufacturers could do more to build security innovation into the design of mobile phones from the outset, the solution does not rest solely with technology.

Porter argues: While smart phones bring many positive benefits to the way we live and work, if the secrets that they hold about us fall into the wrong hands, it can put users at real risk of identity fraud and serious crime. Longer term, the answer to mobile security could lie with the secure cloud, where data is held safely in the network and handheld devices become just a way of accessing services. But this prospect is far off and isnt the entire solution.

With super-fast 4G mobile just around the corner and increasing volumes of our personal and private information held on the systems run by mobile network operators, social networking services and online stores, we have turned traditional ideas of security inside-out. We now need a sophisticated debate about cyber security, which means asking just what information we are prepared to share when we are browsing and twittering.

In light of the Governments recent Digital Britain and Cyber Security Strategy reports, Detica calls for businesses to have a key role in this debate, given the increasing convergence in the way mobile technology and online services are used for personal, social, family and business purposes.

Porter concludes: We urgently need to decide what we want the future of mobile Britain to look like and balance the benefits and risks of mobile technology.

Detica wins key role on Government's ICT Consultancy and Delivery framework agreement

2009-07-07T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the specialist business and technology consultancy, has won a position on the coveted ICT Consultancy and Delivery framework issued by Buying Solutions, the national procurement partner for UK public services. This opens the door for the firm to access potential business over the next three years.

This win is particularly significant as Detica has been given the rare appointment to work on all seven lots contained within this framework agreement. Detica will offer consultancy and delivery services ranging from ICT strategies to software applications as well as technical and security architectures. The framework agreement provides a key route to supplying high quality services across all Government departments and the wider public sector.

Being placed on the Buying Solutions ICT Consultancy and Delivery framework is a great achievement and opportunity for Detica, says Theo Hildyard, Framework Manager at Detica. This win provides us with the chance to work on a wealth of interesting and challenging projects.

We are delighted to have Deticas advisory and implementation skills and specialism in business and technology consultancy recognised in this way by the Government. It is testament to our versatile approach of addressing the individual needs of each client to build fully-tailored solutions. We look forward to delivering world-class services that will bring real value and efficiency to Government departments and ultimately benefit the wider public.

The win follows a ten-month bidding process that started in September 2008. Deticas success with the Buying Solutions ICT Consultancy and Delivery framework agreement builds on its previous appointment on the Buying Solutions framework agreement for Mobile Data Solutions that the company announced in February this year.

We can achieve more security with less - but only if we're smart, says Detica's Martin Sutherland

2009-07-02T00:00:00+01:00

In his keynote speech today at the Homeland & Border Security Conference 2009 in London, Martin Sutherland, Managing Director of Detica, the information intelligence specialist, calls on all those involved in homeland and border security to embrace innovation and re-use in the effort to maintain national security.

There is a clear and present threat from those who threaten the safety of the public, the security of the state or who seek to commit serious and organised crime, says Sutherland. This has resulted in a raft of new security measures which seek to protect us whilst attempting to do so in a proportionate manner. The governments recent release of its Cyber Security Strategy, launched last week during a visit by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown to Deticas London office, highlights how cyberspace makes border protection even more challenging in the 21st century. Because cyberspace is essentially borderless, says Sutherland, the traditional concept of a physical border or boundary becomes increasingly difficult to define, control and protect. The conventions of national or homeland security are fast eroding.

This is a situation, according to Sutherland, that serious organised criminals are only too eager to exploit. As habitual early adopters of new technology, they are quick to exploit the digital revolution for their own purposes. What we now term the new front line the collision between the physical world and cyberspace has created a new threat environment where borderless terrorists and criminals, acting in a more agile and unpredictable manner, can threaten national security, corporate safety and individual well-being on a scale and with a reach that was simply not possible in the past.

This increased complexity, combined with the economic imperative to achieve more with less means scarce resources must be targeted at the most significant threats which themselves are very difficult to identify and all in a proportionate manner. Sutherland comments: This is the classic needle in the haystack problem, except we do not know what we are looking for until we find it we effectively hunt for needles as they are being prepared for the haystack. Fortunately there are now highly innovative and proven methods for achieving this task which have very strong potential for re-use across the security industry.

The answer, according to Sutherland lies in digital footprints. As we go about our daily lives we leave behind digital footprints but so too do terrorists and criminals when they plan and execute their crimes. By looking for unusual patterns of behaviour in data and investigating them more fully we can find the criminals and thus turn their digital footprints against them. Central to Deticas proposed solution is an approach called network risk targeting. This means targeting, at a high level, the key entities involved in a criminal network rather than traditional risk-based targeting which works at a lower level of detail and takes no account of the network context. According to Sutherland: The beauty of network risk targeting is that investigators can quickly identify the source of the problem and tackle it there. Rather than expending effort in tackling the peripheral, we can go straight to the heart of the network of activity. This enables agencies to target scarce investigative resource more effectively and thus do more with less.

Having applied these techniques in physical and physical/virtual threat environments, the next big challenge, according to Sutherland, is applying them in the purely virtual environment of cyberspace. In the virtual environment we are thinking of threats like cyber attacks, online identity theft and digital piracy. But while technology, policy and intent are now emerging, no single agent is able to act in isolation. In this scenario we need a response that is joined-up across government, the private sector and individuals. The launch of the UK Cyber Security Strategy last week endorses the fact that we now need to turn our attention urgently to the virtual threat scenario.

In his presentation today, Sutherland also addresses the issue of balancing security against privacy concerns. Security in the modern world is a careful balance between liberty and proportionality. Where investigations are directed in a more focussed way, using network risk targeting, it means that members of the public will not be investigated unnecessarily. By identifying identify potential targets based on anomalies and hypotheses rather than starting with the individual, it helps balance security and privacy concerns. It is our belief that re-using innovative approaches like this across the industry will help reduce the risk to the UK from international terrorism and organised crime and enable us all to go about our lives freely and with confidence.

Further conference details can be found at: http://www.govnet.co.uk/security.

Detica offers a crystal ball to predict the future of music sales

2009-06-30T00:00:00+01:00

A tool which forecasts the long-term impact of digital piracy on the music industry’s revenues is today launched by Detica, the specialist business and technology consultancy, at the MusExpo conference in London. The model is able to predict the outcome of different strategies for tackling digital piracy on the music industry’s revenue fortunes to generate industry debate on how best to tackle copyright infringement.

The ‘Price for Music’ model has been developed by Detica in conjunction with SoundExchange, an independent, non-profit performance rights company. The new ‘Price for Music’ model is available for anyone to access via a free website (www.apriceformusic.com). It allows users to explore scenarios by inputting their own business variables and generating easy-to-understand graphs and charts projecting revenue over time. The level of detail the model provides, and the ease with which the user can view scenarios, allows complex issues like substitution and simulation to be viewed in a meaningful and practical way.

“Digital piracy is having a catastrophic impact on global music revenues, which is not only plunging the music industry into serial decline, but also jeopardising the future of the next generation of artistic talent,” explains Andy Frost, Director of Media at Detica. “One of the greatest problems facing the music industry is its inability to measure and forecast the impact of various remedies, particularly pricing models, on music consumption. Our ‘Price for Music’ model allows the music industry to see into the unknown and provides projections of traditional and new revenue streams based on historical performance and a variety of alternative future scenarios. The model sits on top of current US data including the annual RIAA shipment report and user download statistics.”

Frost continues: “The aim of the model is not for us at Detica to draw conclusions, but to spark constructive dialogue in the industry on the best way forward. For example, the model will enable record companies, artists, publishers and songwriters, as well as trade bodies in conversation with Government, to measure the impact of digital consumption on traditional CD sales. These may be ‘a la carte’ services, subscription services or ‘access for music’ charges. It is clear to us that the collapse of the physical market for music is well underway, in the same way as CDs replaced cassette tapes. The dialogue in the industry needs to focus on finding new and innovative online offerings to entice consumers away from unlawful online sources.”

Detica applied its specialist expertise in revealing new and valuable intelligence from complex, high volume data to build the ‘Price for Music’ model. Detica has developed a unique capability for providing clients in the media and telecoms sector with innovative solutions that are able to measure and analyse the extent of digital piracy.

The ‘Price for Music’ model will be demonstrated at the MusExpo conference in London on Tuesday 30 June. The model can be trialled at: http://www.apriceformusic.com.

Detica hosts the Prime Minister as the UK Government launches its Cyber Security Strategy

2009-06-25T00:00:00+01:00

On the day that the UK Government launched its much-anticipated Cyber Security Strategy, Detica, the information intelligence specialist, played host to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Secretary of State Alan Johnson and Lord West, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Security and Counter-Terrorism.

The Prime Minister and his colleagues came to NerveCentre™, Detica’s state-of-the-art demonstration facility, where they received an update on current cyber security threats and demonstrations of the company’s cutting-edge cyber security solutions, including StreamShield® and Detica NetReveal®.

Martin Sutherland, Managing Director of Detica, said: “I have no doubt Detica’s industry reputation as the pre-eminent UK player in the cyber security market was a major factor in the Government’s decision to visit our facility. With our unrivalled industry track record, hugely talented people, world-class solutions and demonstrable thought leadership, Detica is a major force in the cyber security arena. We are delighted to act as hosts for this important event.”

At the conclusion of his visit, the Prime Minister commented to the assembled press: “I think everybody knows the Internet has expanded massively, information is flowing around the world, citizens are in danger of being victims of organised crime and there are potentially terrorist attacks on our country, so we are setting up the strategic unit to look at cyber security…Some terrorist groups are using the Internet in a wholly exploitative way, and of course we’ve got to be aware of any threats to our country, so this is a national strategy about protecting Britain.”

Sutherland commented: “Detica strongly welcomes this engagement from the UK government on its ambitious programme to improve cyber security. While there is no way of completely eliminating all the risks associated with cyberspace, there are innovative technological solutions and proven security management processes that can reduce these risks significantly and in a way that still maintains the economic and social benefits of cyberspace. The programme announced today will require a strong partnership between government and industry, as well as extensive international engagement. If the commitment is there, and the necessary funding, we believe this programme will make a substantial difference in ensuring that cyberspace, and hence the public, becomes safer and more secure. As well as helping to deliver the ‘Digital Britain’ vision, this will also enable the UK to create a world-beating capability in cyber security that can be exported to a global market.”

Sutherland concluded: “Our guests expressed a great deal of interest in what they saw and heard, and no doubt left with an extremely favourable impression of our company and the significant contribution we make to UK security.”

Detica joins international experts for Information Security Summit 2009

2009-05-27T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, will be participating in this year’s Information Security Summit 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic. David Porter, one of Detica’s senior security experts, will be part of a group of international security specialists reviewing the past decade of information security and identifying future developments.

The participants, hosted by Data Security Management, and comprising leading experts from the world of information security, will meet for a two-day conference in Prague on 27-28 May 2009. As part of his contribution, Porter will give a perspective on security incidents that should, in principle, have changed the world.

"Since the birth of commercial computing over fifty years ago, a number of IT security incidents have had a significant impact on many aspects of our lives," said Porter. "In one sense, these incidents should be of value since the only way we learn is through getting things wrong. They should therefore change the way we make things more secure.

"However, none of these IT security incidents has ‘changed the world’ enough. The same errors are being repeated and inappropriate remedies are being applied. And now, as the digital revolution begins to really bite, a broad and unpredictable spectrum of threats is making the world a more dangerous place. Because these new threats are evolving faster than the countermeasures, we need a radical re-think about IT security if we are to truly confront and deal with today’s threats— and those of tomorrow."

Other keynote speakers at the conference include Ross Anderson, a leading UK authority on information security, Marcus Ranum, the US developer of the first commercial firewall, and Martin Maisner, a leading Eastern European IT lawyer.

Further details are available at:www.dsm.tate.cz/en/2009.

RSA selects Detica NetReveal® to beat insurance claim cheats

2009-05-26T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, today announced that RSA, the FTSE 100 global insurance group, has purchased a Detica NetReveal® licence, together with related professional services, to complement and enhance its existing portfolio of fraud detection systems.

RSA will be using Detica NetReveal® for the detection of claims fraud across its personal and commercial motor insurance and home insurance business in the UK. The groundbreaking technology may also be extended to cast an even wider net across the insurance group's liability and commercial property lines of business.

John Beadle, UK Counter Fraud Manager at RSA, comments: "We chose Detica NetReveal® following an extensive review of potential providers plus the successful completion of a 'live' trial that resulted in substantially improved fraud detection rates."

Andy Cobb, Director of Business Development for Detica NetReveal®, comments: "We are delighted that RSA, one of the world's leading insurance groups, has chosen our solution. Using the latest version of Detica NetReveal® we will not only accelerate offline investigations but also take fraud prevention a step further by performing live screening of new claims against pre-scored criminal networks. We are delighted to continue to offer our commercial clients the fruits of over thirty years of developing solutions to some of the most complex security problems."

Detica continues expansion with new office at Guildford headquarters

2009-05-22T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, has announced the opening of another office just one week after launching its new Manchester city centre base. This time the new office is in Guildford where the information intelligence specialist, with clients ranging from Ministry of Defence and Department for Transport to Lloyds of London and 3, has its headquarters.

“Such is the increase in the demand for our services that we have had to expand our Surrey headquarters to accommodate the staff needed to deliver our current projects as well as those in the pipeline,” explains Ian McLaren, Finance Director at Detica.

The new office, in Guildford’s Surrey Research Park, will house many of the new people recruited under the company’s current expansion plan. More than 50 roles need to be filled in the South alone with positions ranging from account managers and international business development managers to systems engineers and data analysts. Detica has occupied its headquarters at the Surrey Research Park since 1986 when its total employee count was only 30 people.

“Since those early days, we have grown rapidly into an extremely successful company with the capability and reach to tackle global security issues,” McLaren adds. “We are looking for graduates right through to senior hires and can promise those who join us early responsibility and challenging projects. The work we do is unique. No other consultancy has the skills, know-how or people to take on the projects we do and we are looking for the innovators of the future to join our extraordinary team.”

Detica expands Northwards with launch of a Manchester city centre office

2009-05-13T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, is bucking the downturn by opening a new office in Manchester city centre and recruiting to meet the needs of its growing client base in the North.

The information intelligence specialist, which has a host of clients ranging from the Home Office and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to Vodafone and BT, is looking to attract the best talent in the region into its ranks.

Martin Sutherland, Detica’s Managing Director, said: “Detica has always enjoyed a rapid growth rate and our success of recent years is continuing despite the current economic climate. We are witnessing a significant increase in demand for our services, especially in the North, and are growing in order to respond to the needs of both our existing and new clients.

“We are excited about our expansion in Manchester and look forward to growing our team with talented and enthusiastic individuals who share our passion for excellence and success.”

To celebrate the opening of its new Manchester office, Detica will hold a launch event where there will be the opportunity to hear Detica’s success story and its view of future developments in the world of information intelligence. Members of the company’s leadership team will also be available to discuss career opportunities, as Detica has a variety of roles to fill in its new Northern base, ranging from experienced business consultants and technical architects to data analysts and account managers.

The launch event will take place at 6pm on Tuesday 19 May in central Manchester. For further information and to register for the launch event please go to: www.detica.com/manchester

Smarter international border control is within our reach, says Detica

2009-04-27T00:00:00+01:00

At a time when increased border control is exercising the minds of both international governments concerned with security, and holidaymakers anticipating lengthy airport queues, Detica, the information intelligence specialist, today unveils an innovative approach to smarter border control.

In his address to the ‘Policing the Borders’ conference held in London today, Imam Hoque, Senior Director and Head of Detica’s Technology Innovation Group, sets out the challenge. "While globalisation has caused a dramatic increase in cross-border travel and trade, it also presents a significant risk to domestic security. Trans-national organised criminal networks involved in illegal immigration, smuggling, tax evasion, drug running and terrorism are exploiting the increased movement of people, goods and money across international borders. Facilitating legitimate travel and trade, while preventing those who might cause harm by entering a country, calls for nothing less than a transformation in border management."

The issue, according to Hoque, is that the situation has become increasingly complex. "The scope of border management has extended from the border itself to areas both before and beyond the traditional physical boundary. Meanwhile, the relentless advance of the digital revolution means there is now a cyberspace border to protect as well as real-world land, sea and air frontiers. Perhaps most significantly, embracing a truly risk-based approach is proving to be a major challenge for many border management agencies. Despite implementing new screening processes, there is still scope for generating better quality intelligence for risk-based targeting of people, goods and transportation. Otherwise, time can be wasted pursuing targets that turn out to be no threat at all — the so-called ‘false positives’”.

The solution, according to Hoque, is for those responsible for risk-based targeting to exploit the latest innovations in intelligent high volume data analysis. This echoes remarks made a few days earlier at the World Customs Organization’s 2009 conference in Marrakesh, where the Moroccan Minister for Economy and Finance, Mr. Salaheddine Mazouar, remarked in his keynote address that: "The use of IT is crucial for facilitating trade and combating cross-border crime"¹. However, Hoque issues the following caveat: "Although border protection agencies use a range of data mining methods to identify potential threats within large volumes of border movement data, these methods are in danger of becoming obsolete as criminals evolve their methods, collude with insiders and exploit false identities in order to operate below the radar".

To meet the challenges of 21st century border control, Detica has enhanced its pioneering social network analysis solution, Detica NetReveal®, with risk-based targeting modules for the screening of people, goods and transportation at international borders. This builds on Detica’s unrivalled track record in helping large government and commercial clients deploy risk-based targeting to uncover large-scale fraud, money laundering and other types of organised crime.

Since its launch three years ago, Detica NetReveal® has quickly become the market-leading social network analysis solution. Detica NetReveal®is unique in the way it can exhaustively cross-reference billions of data records from multiple sources to identify patterns of links missed by traditional data matching techniques. Using Detica NetReveal®, border protection staff can now identify, understand and evaluate networks of collaborating individuals across disparate and often unconnected sources of data and so spot the elusive ‘needle in a haystack’. Because Detica NetReveal® can cope with poor quality data due to either accidental or deliberate manipulation, this means it is no longer possible for criminals to avoid detection using variations in identity.

To tackle the challenges of cross-border data analysis, Detica NetReveal®has the added ability to identify highly unusual changes in behaviour as well as matching incoming data, in real time, against existing criminal networks in order to speed-up investigations. The system can also be extended to accommodate richer and more complex forms of ‘unstructured’ data such as biometrics, still and moving images, and written language.

"We now have the potential to revolutionise border control in the same way that we are revolutionising other industries", concludes Hoque. "Using Detica NetReveal® we have made investigations up to five times more efficient, reduced false positives to one-tenth of what they were and, through unearthing new criminal networks, yielded ten times more crime to be detected. Through the right mix of technology, organisation and process, we can now empower and support border protection staff. Border management agencies will then be in a stronger position to implement intelligence-led policing, make better-quality interdictions and, ultimately, achieve more with less."

¹ Source:www.wcoomd.org/press/default.aspx?lid=1&id=179, 22 April 2009.

Information rendered virtually worthless due to lack of data stewardship, warns Detica

2009-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, is warning corporations and government that data stewardship needs to be given a far higher priority in order to safeguard the public, ensure regulatory compliance and improve customer service. Such is the lack of senior skill and commitment to data stewardship that the very information that can help save lives or expose serious criminal activity is being rendered virtually useless.

Data stewardship should be a top priority to anyone who creates updates, deletes or uses information within an organisation. However, achieving this effectively in the midst of the digital revolution, when the amount of data is exploding, is increasingly difficult, especially if no one is championing the cause. While frequent mention is often made of data producers and data consumers, the interface between these two — the custodian who organises and manages the data — is never mentioned.

“Although information is often described as corporate ‘lifeblood’, an overload of badly-managed, poor-quality information could result in ‘clogged arteries’ or even an analytical ‘heart attack’. Organisations really need a heavy dose of good old-fashioned librarianship,” says David Porter, head of security and risk at Detica. “The data stewardship message has to come from the very top, and ever more rigorous and innovative approaches are required to ensure that data is transformed into reliable and actionable intelligence.”

The degree of commitment to effective data management varies widely across organisations and sectors. At one end of the spectrum is the police environment, where the presence or absence of good quality information can literally mean the difference between life and death, as evidenced by the Soham murders. Towards the middle of the spectrum there is the need to report accurate figures to a regulator, and moving towards the other end the need to ensure that marketing mailshots hit the right customer targets.

However, these positions on the spectrum are being shaken up as organisations come under increasing pressure to better understand and manage operational failures whose causes range from accident and error through to malicious intent. Information in particular has become a precious asset that must be protected against threats to its confidentiality, integrity and availability. It is also the bedrock of fast and effective decision making.

Porter believes the introduction of IT has resulted in the classically-trained professional librarian being replaced by database technicians and end users for whom ‘record’ has no strong meaning other than ‘a collection of data’ or ‘a file on my hard disk’. “However, to a trained librarian,” says Porter, “a record is formal, definitive, immutable evidence of business activity that needs to be properly classified and has a specific lifecycle from creation to disposal.”

Porter concludes: “Effective data stewardship is most evident in those organisations that have set up an information management function that regulates the demand and supply of information and ensures that data is managed and protected as a true organisational asset, not just a collection of bits and bytes. Information is only as good as the people who manage it and until data stewardship is given a seat on the board then mistakes, errors and sadly tragedies will continue to happen.”

Detica and CEOP launch new collaborative partnership to fight online child abuse

2009-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, today announced a new collaborative partnership with the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre. Detica will support the work of the CEOP Centre — and the Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) of which CEOP is a member — by providing its industry-leading expertise in information intelligence, on a pro bono basis, to develop new ways to identify and stop online child abuse networks.

Detica brings an unrivalled track record — extending over thirty years — of developing advanced technologies for capturing, storing and analysing high volume, high speed and wide-ranging data at exceptional levels of performance. Its innovative solutions — such as Detica NetReveal® and TxtReveal™ — are used by government departments, major commercial organisations, law enforcement and intelligence services to identify organised criminal networks and unlock information on serious criminal behaviour held within large volumes of computer data.

"Partnerships are essential for providing a continuous flow of high quality expertise, experience and resources into our organisation," said Jim Gamble, CEO of the CEOP Centre and Chairman of the Virtual Global Taskforce. "We are therefore delighted to welcome Detica, the industry leader in information intelligence, as a partner who can help us explore and develop new innovations in identifying and shutting down online child abuse networks".

Martin Sutherland, managing director of Detica, commented: "The digital revolution has changed the rules of the game when it comes to detecting online child abuse networks. The explosion in data volume and complexity provides camouflage to predatory child abusers and can impede conventional approaches to data analysis. However heavily we invest, we will never keep ahead of the data explosion using tried-and-tested approaches to data analysis. Instead we must adopt an innovative approach that turns the data explosion on its head, exploits its new characteristics and enables us to move from chasing predatory criminals to detecting their online networks before they have a chance to establish them".

In addition to its world-leading expertise on intelligent data analysis, in particular teasing apart and simplifying the tangled web of fake identities used by online criminals, Detica will also provide CEOP with insight on how to best integrate and manage the huge variety of data formats that it has to analyse during an operation.

"Our partnership with Detica is a significant step forward in our work to track down and prosecute those who use the Internet to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children," said Gamble. "Any individual who thinks they can carry out online child abuse undetected in the huge flow of Internet data should think again. We are putting them on notice that the Internet is no longer a safe hiding place".

And the Oscar goes to... the digital pirates who shun the limelight for Limewire

2009-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, today calls on the film industry to confront the digital piracy epidemic, which threatens to destroy moviemaking, with a bold and pre-emptive strike to fight illegal downloading. While Sunday’s Oscars ceremony will recognise the best industry talent, Detica argues that the real winners are the illegal pirates who are supplying customers with free blockbuster hits online with unprecedented speed and ease.

With home broadband speeds set to increase phenomenally and a boom in the adoption of mobile entertainment devices, Detica says that the movie industry is heading into more serious difficulties at an even greater pace than the music industry. Media monitor Big Champagne reveals that last year the global user base of BitTorrent clients, a popular file sharing system, surpassed 100 million. Detica argues that the only solution for the film business to combat this challenge is to partner effectively with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and to provide consumers with a ‘better-than-free’ product that provides a richer customer experience and deters people from turning to the illegal market.

Andy Frost, Director of Media at Detica, comments: "Recent studies show film piracy costs major US studios over $6 billion per year¹. With the stakes so high, studios need to learn from the hard lessons of the music industry and make a bold, pre-emptive strike against the illegal peer-to-peer movie sharing market. By partnering with ISPs, who are desperate to offer movie content through online portals, this will provide the necessary motivation for these broadband providers to reduce copyright infringement."

Frost argues that the problem facing the film industry is partly due to the consumption model of movies. Fans are rarely concerned about ownership, but rather the experience and timing of watching films. Popular blockbusters are now available illegally online long before their release at the cinema. For example, Big Champagne observed that ‘Quantum of Solace’ was released in high quality on BitTorrent two weeks before its US release.

Frost continues: ‘People tend to only watch films once, so being able to deliver the movie when it is publicised and then again whenever people want to watch it, is critical. The pirate model does this excellently and the movie industry needs to stop fixating on film release dates and instead provide competitive offerings that allow people to watch films whenever and however they like, at a price to match. In the economic downturn, people are ‘returning to the nest’ and this, plus an increased reliance on mobile technology, only compounds this need for flexibility. The film industry must respond and provide consumers with greater choice for home entertainment and movies ‘on the go’. The solution has to be an effective partnership with the ISPs to build intelligent networks that offer enhanced quality of service whilst reducing the use of unlicensed content from file sharing websites."

While Sunday’s Oscar winners are yet to be revealed, levels of illegal file sharing suggest that a significant proportion of the film loving public has already cast its vote for most popular film. Frost concludes: "The long-term future of the Oscars and the film industry looks bleak. Unless it faces the challenge from digital piracy with foresight and bravery, the film industry could be reduced to congratulating itself for nothing in years to come."

¹ Source: Motion Picture Association of America.

Inflexible office boundaries, not the snow, disrupt businesses and lose them money, says Detica

2009-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, says greater investment in mobile technology could protect UK businesses from the costly impact of adverse weather conditions and other unforeseen disruptions. Recently awarded a position on a Government framework agreement to deploy new mobile working solutions to transform public services, Detica contends that the private sector also urgently needs to improve its mobile technology infrastructure to promote a more flexible and resilient way of working.

With Mondays bad weather preventing a fifth of the nations workforce from getting into work, at a total estimated loss of £1.2 billion¹, Detica believes the time has come to sweep away inflexible office boundaries that make businesses so vulnerable to disruptive events such as this weeks snow. By investing in mobile technology, Detica argues that the UK economy will reap the benefits of improved flexibility, productivity, staff safety and morale. Flexible and mobile working also offers the potential to reduce accommodation costs in the economic downturn as well as lessen the impact on the environment.

Mike Brown, Head of Mobile Data Solutions at Detica, says: "When significant disruptions like heavy snow occur, it is far more efficient for employees to work remotely, by tapping into a mobile office infrastructure, rather than dragging out their snow boots and braving an arduous commute into the office. Organisations have to realise that the economy and the world are changing, and the traditional concept of the office needs to make way for a more flexible, virtual way of working that will keep businesses responsive, competitive and agile. This weeks cold snap took many by surprise, but with climate change, a world recession and a wealth of other global threats, the one thing we can forecast this year is more unpredictable events."

In December 2008, Detica was awarded a position on a framework agreement by OGCbuying.solutions, an executive agency of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) in HM Treasury, to provide mobile working solutions for the public sector. Deticas mobile solution provides a single, secure access point for use by mobile workers to remotely access applications, databases and information whenever and wherever it is needed, and also allows flexible users to work anywhere as though in the office, without being tied to specific locations. The secure solution will run on a wide range of devices from PDAs through to laptops, vehicle-based terminals and bespoke mobile devices on any communications network.

Brown added: "Mobile technology has the power to transform working practices and we are both proud and excited to be working with the OGCbuying.solutions to help deliver the next generation of mobile public service solutions. The mobile solutions award further extends our relationship with OGCbuying.solutions as a provider of ICT and multi-disciplinary consultancy services".

¹ Source: Federation of Small Businesses.

Detica StreamShield® joins Family Online Safety Institute

2009-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, today announced that StreamShield®is to join the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) to help address online safety concerns by promoting enhanced network-based security practices to help ISPs deliver effective child protection services. In addition to partnering with FOSI, which identifies and promotes best practice, tools and methods for a safer online world, StreamShield®will also join FOSI’s board of directors. Simon Reay, Head of Sales and Business Development for StreamShield®, will be the company’s representative on the board.

"We are proud to welcome StreamShield®to our organisation as well as to our FOSI board of directors," said Stephen Balkam, CEO of FOSI. "StreamShield®is committed to raising awareness of Internet safety and enabling safer online experiences for Internet users across the globe — an important step in our increasingly tech-savvy world."

"As an active supporter of FOSI, StreamShield®is honored to be able to contribute to FOSI’s mission of making the Internet a safer place for children and families," said Simon Reay. "We are committed to supply innovative technologies and services to confront the dangers on the Internet for families and raise awareness of security and safety issues through FOSI."

Detica StreamShield®joins a high profile community of FOSI members, including AOL, AT&T, British Telecom, Comcast, France Telecom, Google, Microsoft, Sentinel, Telefónica, Telmex and Verizon.

Detica StreamShield®is also a member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and over the past year leading fixed-line broadband operators such as O2 and Opal Telecom, the network provider for Carphone Warehouse, have purchased the Detica StreamShield®Content Security Gateway to improve online security. VTR Global Com S.A. (VTR), a leading South American-based ISP, also recently selected the StreamShield®Content Security Gateway solution as part of a groundbreaking online security programme launched in conjunction with the Chilean government.

Detica announces major enhancements to its crime-busting Detica NetReveal® solution

2008-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, today launched Version 5.2 of Detica NetReveal®, a significant milestone in the development of its crime-busting social network analytics solution. As well as offering enhanced functionality, Detica NetReveal® is now fully independent of any third party statistical analytical package.

Detica NetReveal® Version 5.2 is the latest extension to the successful Detica NetReveal® portfolio — a suite of solutions designed to help government departments, major financial institutions, enforcement and intelligence services uncover the hidden relationships in their data. By using social network analysis to identify organised criminal networks with much greater speed and efficiency, it enables genuine customers to be processed faster and more effectively.

Since it was originally taken up by the UK's Insurance Fraud Bureau — leading to 74 arrests in the Bureau's first year mdash; leading financial institutions and government departments, including HSBC, RBS Insurance and Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), have added Detica NetReveal® to their intelligence and counter-fraud armories.

Version 5.2 of this ground-breaking solution offers a range of new functionality including:

an entity-centric search facility, NetReveal Identifier™, which helps investigators search for specific entities (subjects or objects) within a network;
a new facility for pinpointing the geographical positions of network entities on a satellite or street map;
an enhanced task management facility, NetReveal Workbench™, for coordinating and streamlining investigation activities.

In addition, Version 5.2 extends Detica’s open architecture approach so that the software is now fully independent of any third party statistical analytical package giving customers greater flexibility, significantly reduced disk usage and lower cost of deployment.

Imam Hoque, Detica NetReveal® founder and CTO, says: "Version 5.2 demonstrates that we remain committed to listening to our customers and meeting their needs. With this latest release, customers will be able to achieve more with fewer products in their fraud and intelligence operations and so drive down the total cost of ownership. Our most recent customers have achieved a nearly 50-to-1 return on their investment in Detica NetReveal® Version 5.2".

Digital piracy consultation is out of tune with the needs of the entertainment industry, says Detica

2008-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, today urges the UK Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) to shift the focus of its consultation process away from enforcement when considering legislative options for addressing illicit peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing.

Andy Frost, Director of Media at Detica, says: “While we commend BERR’s focus on upholding copyright, we believe the practicalities of enforcement alone will prove too costly and time-consuming for the ISPs to administer. The best solution will be one that meets the needs of the broader community of artists, consumers and labels — and the ISPs that bind them — and not one that fixates on the labels and the hardcore criminal minority that threatens them”.

Detica insists that stronger collaboration between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the entertainment industry is the only way to make it easier for consumers to download music and films legally whilst also providing ‘fair trade’ for artists.

Frost continues: “The spirit of the BERR consultation document appears to be overly focused on protecting the interests of record labels who own the copyright material and are being threatened by an explosion in unlicensed P2P file sharing. Of course, labels have a legitimate interest in seeing the authorities resolve this issue, but the reality is that the digital marketplace is very complex. Any solution will need to encapsulate the needs of other stakeholders too, especially artists and consumers who are not necessarily able to demonstrate such a united front to the Government”.

Detica argues that collaboration can be achieved by the industry adopting a voluntary framework in which ISPs deploy advanced technology to identify where and when copyrighted files are being downloaded.

Frost adds: “We can now deploy proven, scaleable intelligence technology within an ISP’s network to enable them to deliver exciting new business models such as a ‘per track’ download fee or an ‘all in’ monthly subscription service. Ultimately, this approach could see the spectre of illegal downloading disappear altogether since users will be charged automatically — and fairly — for any files they download or share”.

As well as bypassing the significant costs and potential ineffectiveness of an enforcement-focused regime, Detica’s proposed solution will enable any profit generated by user downloads to be shared proportionately between ISPs, labels and artists.

Frost comments: “Our collaborative business approach acknowledges all the players impacted by digital downloading and strives to provide a degree of fairness for all. Our experience from the security industry tells us that in these situations voluntary compliance is just as important as enforced compliance — you only use a big stick for the minority of hardened cases.”

Whilst the ISPs will need to absorb the set-up costs of the technology, Detica believes this will likely be less than the costs of administering an enforcement-focused solution. Frost concludes: “With our solution everybody wins, not least the ISPs who will be able to recoup the technology costs by charging customer subscriptions and sharing new customer insight, for a fee, with the content owners”.

Detica demands fairness for all as digital piracy epidemic spreads

2008-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, today proposes a fresh approach to tackling the digital piracy epidemic that threatens to destroy the entertainment industry. Detica insists that stronger collaboration between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the entertainment industry is the only way to make it easier for consumers to download music and films legally whilst providing ‘fair trade’ for artists.

Andy Frost, Director of Media at Detica, says: "We now face a watershed in the entertainment industry. A new generation of technology-savvy consumers increasingly wants access to music, movies, TV shows and games, from PCs, PDAs and smartphones 24 hours a day. They will choose the best service offering available to them to download this content, regardless of whether it is legal or not."

This approach is supported by a report completed recently by Yankee Group — ‘An "everybody wins" strategy for digital content’— that reveals how the threat from digital piracy could lead to the ultimate collapse of the entertainment industry. Research shows that approximately 51% of consumers use illegal digital file sharing as a primary means of obtaining music. This figure presents a major revenue challenge to music labels and film and TV production companies who hold the copyright — and also threatens the system that rewards artists for their creative talents. According to Frost: "Broadband companies and record labels have failed to respond to the needs of consumers and have continued to pursue misguided and unenforceable policies such as threatening disconnection from the Internet. In the face of a mounting piracy crisis, the industry must consider a fresh approach."

Frost continues: "In the last six months we have witnessed the music industry waking up to the opportunity of licensing digital content, whether through ad-funded ‘freemium’ streamed services or subscription-based download models. However, the challenge with all of these models is how to create something that’s actually ‘better than free’since the massive amount of unlicensed digital music traffic will continue without commercial partnerships being developed between ISPs and the major music labels."

Frost does however remain positive that the debate is moving in the right direction: "Both industries now acknowledge that whilst technical solutions do exist to enable ISPs to provide secure models to content owners within their networks, they require significant capital outlay and must deliver returns for shareholders through robust commercial models.

"Our challenge to both industries is to stop the in-fighting through lawyers and start working together to deal with the digital piracy epidemic by creating mutually beneficial business models. Only when this happens will the investment required start to flow into developing the required copyright protection solutions."

Frost concludes: "The music industry is at the crest of a huge piracy wave and must embrace this collaborative approach before the epidemic spreads to other digital growth sectors such as TV, films and gaming. If the music industry gets this right it will prevent its destruction and forge the way ahead in ensuring fairness-for-all in the entertainment world."

Detica urges mobile phone operators to act now to stamp out online child sexual abuse content

2008-10-24T00:00:00+01:00

On Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) Awareness Day, Detica, the business and technology consultancy, warns of the growing challenge that mobile operators face to prevent online child sexual abuse content being made accessible on consumer devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. As an active IWF Funding Council member, Detica has extensive experience identifying and blocking illegal online content through its Detica StreamShield®solution and urges mobile operators to act now to prevent child sexual abuse content appearing on their networks.

John Gorbutt, Detica StreamShield®Sales Director, says: "The vast majority of child sexual abuse content is accessed through conventional Internet connections. However, there is now a growing danger that this threat will spread as broadband networks, currently being rolled out by mobile operators, are misused by criminals in the same way.

"Building on the good work started by the IWF, we are pleased to see other proactive industry initiatives, such as the GSMA’s ‘Mobile Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Content’ appearing, as this is a serious problem that mobile operators need to tackle now. The race is on for mobile operators to implement an effective method of identifying child sexual abuse content and blocking access to it. This means not only getting to grips with the complexity of the data analysis task but also achieving this with minimal impact on operations. Detica, with its proven StreamShield®content filtering solution — and its unrivalled track record in intelligence and security systems — stands ready to help mobile operators face this challenge."

This year many leading fixed-line broadband operators — including O2 and Opal Telecom, the network provider for Carphone Warehouse — purchased the Detica StreamShield®Content Security Gateway to improve online security. This is an advanced carrier-grade content processing solution designed for high-speed Internet Service Provider (ISP) and mobile operator networks. It enables ISPs to pipe clean, filtered Internet content directly into homes and businesses without the need for customers to install any specialised software or hardware on their computers.

Detica StreamShield®is a member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the UK Internet ‘Hotline’ for the public to report their exposure to online child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK. The IWF works in partnership with the online industry, government, police and the public. As a result of this self-regulatory approach, less than 1% of online child sexual abuse content has apparently been hosted in the UK since 2003, down from 18% in 1997.

Gorbutt concludes: "We are extremely proud to continue to support the Internet Watch Foundation in its ongoing mission to rid the Internet of illegal online content. Detica StreamShield®will continue to work with the IWF, service providers and mobile operators in making the Internet — whether indoors or mobile — a safer place for everyone."

We have to think like criminals to catch criminals, says Detica

2008-10-22T00:00:00+01:00

In a presentation today at the Homeland Security Round Table in London, Martin Sutherland, Managing Director of Detica, the business and technology consultancy, gives more details of the company’s radical new approach to anticipating and responding to serious criminal activity ranging from fraud, smuggling and digital piracy through to gang violence, terrorism and online child exploitation.

According to Sutherland, the proliferation of digital technologies and the explosive growth in data means that we have to re-evaluate our approach to detecting and preventing serious criminal activities. "Significantly, it isn’t governments or companies that are driving the digital revolution, it’s all of us", says Sutherland. "Our online behaviour, addiction to digital gadgetry and demand for content are changing the face of surveillance and intelligence. We are the biggest contributors to the mass of data in the digital universe. Much of this data can now be used by law enforcement organisations in the course of a criminal or terrorist investigation".

According to Sutherland, the first step in this approach is to think like terrorist and other serious criminals. "What motivates them?" he asks. "What methods do they use? What tools? What steps do they have to follow to perpetrate an attack? We need to understand our attacker if we are to anticipate their next move". Detica’s hypothesis is simple: if we can map out the possible courses of action for a terrorist attack, looking at all the potential activities that come before the event, we can look for the ‘digital footprints’ that correspond to one or more of these activities. The links between these notable digital footprints Detica calls ‘threatprints’.

"Threatprints represent a completely different approach to intelligence", Sutherland continues. "Rather than looking at all of the data on everyone and trying to find patterns and anomalies, we are looking for an organised set of activities which may be linked together by people, places, times and so on". According to Sutherland, a key benefit of this approach is that it is inherently proportionate since it focuses on those activities that are already known or considered to be potentially suspicious. "We are not talking about fishing trips in large oceans of data" he continues. "Instead, as links are built up between suspect activities we can build up a better picture of the risk and then introduce targeted surveillance and intervention measures".

Sutherland contends that threatprints can shed valuable new light on all serious crimes, from fraud, smuggling and digital piracy through to gang violence, terrorism and online child exploitation. "Because the digital revolution is now an enabler for most serious crimes, we need a wholesale change in our response to terrorists and other serious organised criminals" he concludes. "This will enable us to better predict, and ultimately influence, criminal behaviour in a proportionate way while avoiding a systemic invasion of people’s privacy".

Risky online behaviour by consumers fuelling increase in identity fraud, warns Detica

2008-10-10T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, today warns that people are still failing to combat identity fraud, despite an increased risk and heightened fear among the public of the crime. Detica believes this problem stems from people not only lacking a basic understanding about online security but also engaging in positively risky on-line behaviour.

David Porter, Head of Security and Risk at Detica, said: “There is only so much that experts and computer systems can do to prevent identity fraud. The final responsibility rests with the consumer. Identity fraud attacks succeed largely because of human fallibility; however there are simple steps that people can take to avoid being caught out by fraudsters.

“In particular, people need to be more guarded about their behaviour online and be aware that personal information that they reveal about themselves, for example on social networking sites, can be accessed and used by fraudsters. Keeping a close eye on bank statements and regularly changing PINs and passwords is also vital.”

Research shows that identity fraud has now overtaken mugging, pick-pocketing and burglary to become the nation’s top safety fear. Furthermore, a recent report has highlighted that the credit crunch is leading to the increased risk that bank account holders will become victims of identity fraud. The All Party Parliamentary Group on ID cards found that fraudsters are finding it more difficult to use fake identities to open accounts and take out loans as credit dries up, which in turn is leading to an increase in identity fraud based on techniques such as phishing.

To raise awareness of these issues during National Identity Fraud Prevention Week, Detica has outlined a five-step action plan to once and for all help people safeguard against identity fraud.

1. Think before you tell the world your secrets
Cherished or memorable information about your life usually forms the basis of your passwords or PIN numbers, so think twice before freely disclosing details about your personal life, interests and hobbies to a global Internet audience.

2. Remember you cannot shred in cyberspace
Anything published online will exist in cyberspace for a very long time, in some cases forever, so consider this before disclosing any personal information on the Internet.

3. Be your own policeman
The best person for spotting irregularities in transactions or the way a service is used is you, rather than the bank or the police, so regularly check your bank statements, bills and credit records.

4. Trust no-one
The Internet is totally anonymous, so adopt a “challenge, don’t trust” mentality for websites and emails. Update security settings on social networking sites so that only people you really know can see your details. And in the real world, never let your bank cards go out of your sight and destroy all bank card receipts.

5. Keep your passwords and PINs fresh
Create passwords that are extremely difficult, if not impossible, for others to guess — but easy for you to remember — and change them regularly. Avoid using the same passwords and PINs across websites, bank cards and other accounts.

Porter concludes: “Taking steps to prevent identity fraud is crucial to fighting this type of crime. However, prevention can only protect us so far. It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep our identities private, so the risk of fraud will always remain. Fraudsters are persistent and constantly adapting and innovating new ways to commit crime, so it is important for consumers to recognise how these people operate and to never let down their guard.”

Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs purchases Detica NetReveal® licence

2008-09-30T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, today announced that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has purchased an enterprise-wide licence for Detica’s market-leading counter-fraud and intelligence product Detica NetReveal®.

Imam Hoque, Detica NetReveal® Founder and CTO, said: "As a long-standing Detica NetReveal® client, HMRC’s decision to move to an enterprise licence is a fitting testament to the proven capabilities of this revolutionary product. We look forward to continuing to roll-out market-leading solutions for them."

Detica NetReveal® is designed to help government departments, major financial institutions, enforcement and intelligence services uncover the hidden relationships in their data. It identifies fraud and broader criminal networks with much greater speed and efficiency, enabling genuine customers to be processed faster and more effectively. Its pioneering approach to fraud detection has already proved successful in helping organisations as diverse as HMRC, HSBC and the UK’s Insurance Fraud Bureau.

Global insurance organisation selects Detica NetReveal® to fight financial crime

2008-09-25T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, today announced that a global insurance organisation has purchased a Detica NetReveal®licence together with related professional services. This follows the announcement earlier this year that RBS Insurance had bought the product.

Detica NetReveal®is designed to help insurers detect more fraud with much greater speed, accuracy and efficiency, enabling genuine claims to be processed faster and premiums to be kept competitive. Its pioneering approach to fraud intelligence — spotting entire networks of fraudulent activity — has already proved successful in helping the UK’s Insurance Fraud Bureau achieve an unprecedented number of arrests of the most serious organised cross-industry criminal gangs and a significant return on investment.

Andy Cobb, Director of Business Development for Detica NetReveal®, commented: "Our continued emphasis on developing powerful models for detecting financial crime across all insurance lines is reaping substantial benefits for insurers across the industry and brings particular benefits to global players as they standardise on a single resilient solution."

Detica equips Turquoise to fight financial market abuse

2008-09-15T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, has successfully developed a state-of-the art market surveillance system for Turquoise, the new multi-lateral trading facility that serves as an alternative to the London Stock Exchange (LSE). Detica’s ground-breaking technology will provide an instant bird’s-eye view of the market to help capture illegal trading and root out market irregularities.

Detica’s delivery of this technology comes at a time when incidents of market abuse have been particularly rife and damaging to an already uncertain marketplace. The company played a crucial role in enabling Turquoise to pass the FSA’s tough regulatory requirements. Simon Asplen-Taylor, Head of Market and Regulatory Services at Detica, said: “We are proud to have been involved in facilitating the success of Turquoise, a trading platform which is destined to become a household name like the London Stock Exchange. The introduction of Turquoise as a new trading venue will help improve the resilience of the UK marketplace.”

During the development, Detica also designed and built a special-purpose market surveillance accelerator which is unique in its ability to enable the solution to keep pace with rapid changes in the market. “The market surveillance system we have developed is truly groundbreaking” concludes Asplen-Taylor. “It cuts through market noise to deliver, in real time, a clear picture of what is really happening and the unusual events that are occurring. As an industry initiative, Turquoise provides a real opportunity for investment banks to crack down on fraudulent activity together.”

Leading South American ISP turns to Detica to stamp out child sexual abuse

2008-08-27T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, today announced that VTR Global Com S.A. (VTR), a Chilean-based ISP, has selected the StreamShield® Content Security Gateway solution as part of a groundbreaking online security programme launched in conjunction with the Chilean government.

In the first initiative of its kind in South America, the Chilean online security programme aims to educate parents, young people and children about the potential risks when using the Internet. Detica's StreamShield® content filtering solution will be a key element of this programme.

"Detica's ultra-high speed StreamShield® technology will enable us to block access to web-based child abuse images. This means we will be able to provide our customers with a safer environment and protect children while simultaneously dealing a serious blow against child pornographers," said Mauricio Ramos, VTR Executive Chairman, who has personally led the project.

John Gorbutt, StreamShield® Sales Director at Detica, said VTR was leading the way in protecting South American internet users. He added: "This is another success story where one of Detica's leading-edge solutions is being deployed to address the real-world concerns of major broadband service providers. We are delighted to be part of VTR's new and innovative broadband security programme in Chile to provide a safer, cleaner Internet for everyone."

The StreamShield® Content Security Gateway is an advanced carrier-grade content processing solution designed for high-speed Internet service provider and mobile operator networks. It enables Internet service providers to pipe clean, filtered Internet content directly into homes and businesses without the need for customers to install any specialised software or hardware on their computers.

Banking controls are past their sell-by date, warns Detica

2008-08-15T00:00:00+01:00

In light of the tougher stance the FSA is taking taken against investment banks found guilty of trading irregularities, Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the specialist business and technology consultancy, has reiterated its call for the industry to refresh its approach to managing risk and controls.

Referring to the imposition this week of a significant fine by the FSA, Tony Clark, Director from Detica's Investment Banking unit, says that banks need to smarten up their act. "Any bank tempted to view penalties for regulatory malpractice like parking tickets needs to think again", he says. "The current regime at the FSA is clearly determined to crack down on irregular behaviour and from now on, those found to be in breach of the rules may well start seeing themselves clamped or even towed away".

Concurring with the FSA's most recent comments Clark continues, "Investigations of recent instances of market abuse have highlighted the inadequacy of silo-based controls that are further weakened by matrix reporting lines and a culture of deference towards the front office." To tackle this and other weaknesses in the traditional control model, Detica has developed a Networked Operational Risk Management (Detica NORM™) framework which takes an innovative approach to operational risk by linking together all of a bank's functional silos holistically.

The challenge for the banks is keeping their multi-faceted operational environments supervised effectively without over-burdening their operations with additional cost and complexity. Understanding the increasingly complex nature of the instruments being traded is one element. This in turn is compounded by organisation structures characterised by matrix reporting lines that straddle product, functional and geographical silos.

Clark continues "Detica NORM™ is a breakthrough because it provides a systematic approach to measuring operational risk whilst linking up disparate silos. It works in a way that is organisationally agnostic and which delivers compliance departments with an objective fact-based, rather than assertion-based, view of trading behaviour. We are seeing increasing interest from the banking community in a framework that offers a resilient cross-silo approach to operational risk management".

Detica is currently testing its hypothesis at a major bank where it is creating a holistic view of trader risk across the functional silos. "The challenge now is sourcing the data" concludes Clark. "Data experts have long acknowledged the need to maintain more complete and accurate sources across organisations but their protestations often fall on deaf ears. We are now starting to see data quality rise to the top of the business agenda as management accepts that it is critical to building secure and resilient control environments".

Detica launches TxtReveal

2008-08-12T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L) — the business and technology consultancy — today launches TxtReveal™, a revolutionary software application designed specifically to enable intelligence analysts to unlock information on criminal and terrorist behaviour held within large volumes of unstructured computer data.

Built in response to the challenge of assessing intelligence reports and monitoring the massive explosion in online and other digital activity, TxtReveal™ sets a new standard in speed and sophistication. The ground-breaking software enables analysts to explore large volumes of unstructured data — such as documents, emails, messaging, telephone calls, web browsing, bulletin boards and financial transactions — and generate actionable intelligence in seconds rather than days or weeks.

Imam Hoque, Head of Technology Innovation at Detica, says: "Today, governments are facing a new front line. Increasingly sophisticated criminals and terrorists are exploiting the interplay between the physical world and cyberspace while the digital universe is expanding faster than can be monitored and analysed. However this actually presents an exceptional intelligence opportunity, because it is now impossible for criminals to operate without leaving behind some fragments of digital information — what Detica calls a 'digital footprint' — which can be discovered. The challenge now is to make sense of these digital footprints to generate useful intelligence."

One of the major challenges to generating robust intelligence is the massive volume and complexity of unstructured data to be analysed. By using TxtReveal™ analysts can now very quickly and easily explore and interrogate large repositories of unstructured data to help them understand the organisational structure of criminal groups, what they are doing, where they are operating and how their operations are being financed.

Hoque continues: "TxtReveal™ enables analysts to explore unstructured data to generate actionable intelligence about criminal groups in seconds rather than days or weeks. The software enables high speed searches through millions of documents and brings back results in the form of maps, networks, calendars of activity and other means of opening up new lines of enquiry. The easy-to-use visual query builder also enables non-technical analysts to create powerful queries in just a few clicks of a mouse. TxtReveal™ also helps identify links and clues — which may have previously been missed — by making connections between similar documents and related entities as well as enabling fast geospatial searching."

TxtReveal™ sets a new benchmark in unstructured data analysis and provides an analysis capability which until now would have required a large number of software packages to be combined and deployed at significant cost and effort. It has been tailored by Detica to meet the exacting requirements of intelligence analysts and draws on the company's decades of experience in capturing, storing and analysing complex, high volume data at exceptional levels of performance.

UK could get left behind as Europe looks to increase cross-border information sharing, says Detica

2008-07-14T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, says UK authorities must move quickly to address the challenges of international information sharing to avoid being left behind by the rest of Europe. Fear of identity theft and distrust of the Government safeguarding privacy means the UK is now falling behind Europe in cross-border sharing of personal information. Meanwhile initiatives such as the recent European e-Health Survey have led to calls for European Governments to integrate electronic public services more widely and share information about their citizens for the benefit of all who work or travel in Europe.

Anthony Golledge, from Detica’s Government division, says: “In our increasingly mobile world, cross-border travel is now fast becoming the norm, particularly in Europe with the free labour market. From a public services perspective, personal information needs to be equally mobile and travel with people across borders so that authorities can determine their entitlement to benefits such as healthcare. In the UK, we are being held back by public debate and concerns over data protection, which means that information sharing initiatives are seen as threats to our personal privacy.”

Golledge continues: “We need to find ways to carefully ‘open up’ our benefits databases and healthcare records systems. If we get left behind, the risks are two-fold. Firstly, UK citizens will find it more difficult to get public services in Europe — such as healthcare — to which they are entitled. Secondly, information sharing between these databases and IT systems helps us close the loopholes that fraudsters can exploit to use public services like the NHS for free. Clearly, sharing information across borders to improve services and spot the digital footprints that are strong indicators of fraud or abuse will involve making some trade-offs between security and privacy, but we need to act quickly.”

There are growing concerns about the exploitation of UK public services by international fraudsters — such as the ‘health tourism’ trend — which place further demand on over-stretched Government budgets and the total cost of the service to taxpayers. A confidential report for the Department of Health, released last year under the Freedom of Information Act, estimated that the UK lost £30m in unrecovered debts from foreign visitors in 2004. Detica argues that plugging the UK’s ‘information sharing gap’ quickly will help to address some of these loopholes.

Golledge concludes: “ The information revolution and the explosion in digital data has truly changed the world and is forcing us to rethink all aspects of our lives as a consequence — just as fraudsters and benefit cheats have been doing. There are huge potential advantages for European citizens if Governments can co-ordinate international information sharing on a much wider scale. In the UK, the Government’s National Identity Scheme has a vital role to play in plugging our information sharing gap by giving us a ‘passport’ to access our personal information wherever we are. We will need to balance our very real concerns for personal privacy with the potential benefits to our health, security and way of life. Ultimately, getting this balance right will have major implications for many other aspects of our lives, from vetting foreign teachers coming to work in UK schools to deciding whether somebody should be granted asylum in the UK.”

Detica announces development of first 40Gbit/s StreamShield cybersecurity sensors for large telecommunications operators and ISPs

2008-07-09T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, today announces its plans to develop 40Gbit/s StreamShield cybersecurity sensors for securing the online environment against disruptive attacks from terrorists and organised criminals. Detica will be one of the first companies to offer this high-speed cybersecurity capability to the telecommunications market.

Detica's new 40Gbit/s interface card for the StreamShield DCI-90 platform will expand its current 10Gbit/s and 1Gbit/s StreamShield threat detection and mitigation products. The DCI-90 provides the industry's most comprehensive deep packet inspection capabilities, complementing the gigabit level streams-based security provided by the CSG 3100. Detica expects to make the 40Gbit/s Streamshield sensors commercially available in 2009.

Joel Bagnal, until recently Deputy Assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security and now Executive Vice President at Detica, says: "Securing the world's information infrastructure from Internet-based threats is one of the principal challenges today for both homeland security and telecoms operators. StreamShield solutions such as the DCI-90 and the CSG-3100 will be critical to securing the online environment against attacks being mounted by both terrorists and organised criminals."

With the continued explosion in Internet traffic volumes, 40Gbit/s is rapidly being deployed at the core of some of the world's largest ISPs and Detica is committed to maintaining its lead at the forefront of high-speed network cybersecurity solutions. Following the integration of the StreamShield business into Detica, the entire StreamShield product line — incorporating DCI-90 high speed sensors and the market-leading CSG 3100 platform for detection and mitigation of malicious Internet content will now be enhanced to provide 40Gbit/s interfaces to the DCI-90.

Commenting on the announcement, Simon Reay, Vice President of StreamShield Sales, says: "We are committed to developing the 40 Gbit/s sensors in response to strong demand from the telecommunications and ISP market. Detica will be one of the first companies to offer this kind of high speed cybersecurity capability which we believe will play a key role in securing the online environment against those who threaten the security of the state, the safety of the public, or who seek to commit serious and organised crime."

Threat intelligence needs significant re-think to deal with today's information-intensive world, says Tom Black

2008-07-03T00:00:00+01:00

In his keynote speech today at the Homeland & Border Security Conference 2008 in London, Tom Black, Chief Executive of Detica, sets out a new approach to intelligence to better seek out the digital footprints laid down by those who threaten the security of the state, the safety of the public, or who seek to commit serious and organised crime. In the face of a massive explosion in online activity, data volumes, data complexity and social networking all of which are growing in volume, velocity and variety Black advocates a radical new approach that both identifies these digital footprints and anticipates serious threats ahead of time so that they can be prevented.

Black says: "Due to the Internet, criminals ranging from minor offenders to international extremists can now threaten our individual well-being and national security on a scale and with a reach that was simply not possible in the past, radically improving their operations. The bottom line is that there is simply too much data to look at. It's moving too fast and it is too varied. The digital universe is expanding faster than the intelligence community has the capacity to monitor and analyse.

"This new threat environment is so different from the old world order that we need to develop a new understanding and response. However, we should recognise that while the threat is new, so too are the opportunities for detection and intervention. This actually presents us with an exceptional intelligence opportunity because it's impossible for criminals who present a serious threat to operate within the world today without leaving some fragments of digital information digital footprints which can be found. But to track them down, we have to turn the current intelligence paradigm on its head."

Detica believes that today's conventional approaches to intelligence gathering and criminal investigation do not fully take account of the way in which cyberspace and the physical world now intersect, providing almost limitless opportunities for criminals to carry out their crimes in both spheres. Criminals are simply doing what legitimate businesses have been doing for years, such as improving their business models by exploiting the Internet. For instance, the digital world is now used as a matter of course to plan and facilitate crimes in the physical world such as terrorism, radicalisation, sabotage, espionage, counterfeiting and drug trafficking.

Black believes that a new approach is required to defend the digital frontline: "We don't need to sift through all of the data to find the needle in the haystack; that's crude, brute force analysis, and it requires us to know what we are looking for ahead of time. Realising this, we are now watching for anomalies — exceptions to normal behaviours and events. This will buy us time, but does not solve the real problem brought about by the information explosion. Instead, the more significant innovation will come when we advance beyond anomaly detection, shifting our focus from digital footprints to threat blueprints or 'threatprints' which we anticipate ideally before the terrorist or criminal has been radicalised or recruited. These hypothetical threatprints can be broken down into component anomalies and exceptions, enabling us to prevent the threat ever materialising. The system will continually envisage and incorporate new threatprints, learning as it goes. It's quicker, it's smarter and it's the only way forward."

Black also believes this new approach will address increasing concerns about privacy. "We are increasingly aware of the need to protect the privacy of our citizens, even as we safeguard their security and way of life. The current approach does nothing but stir up such concerns by encouraging the accumulation of information. The new approach advocated here — focusing on anomalies and threatprints rather than people is far better placed to protect privacy without compromising effectiveness. Essentially, this is justified investigation rather than 'just-in-case' monitoring."

Black concludes: "We are now at a crossroads. We can spend increasing sums of money on more of the same sifting through more haystack, and hardwiring more targets and triggers but we will never catch up with the increasing data volume and complexity. Or we can recognise the opportunity we have to truly innovate, to make use of exception analysis and hypothetical threatprints. Achieving this wholesale change of approach will require radical and ongoing innovation and a reprioritisation of investment. But we believe that this is an opportunity of such significance to our future security and way of life that we cannot afford to let it slip."

O2 selects Detica to give customers a safer, cleaner Internet

2008-06-17T00:00:00+01:00

StreamShield, part of Detica Group plc, today announced that O2 (UK) Limited (O2), a subsidiary of Telefonica, has selected the StreamShield Content Security Gateway solution to provide its customers with a safer, cleaner internet service for its UK Broadband service.

The StreamShield Content Security Gateway (CSG) is an advanced carrier-grade content processing solution designed for high-speed internet service provider and mobile operator networks. The CSG enables internet service providers to pipe clean, filtered internet content directly into homes and businesses without the need for customers to install any specialised software or hardware on their computers.

"The StreamShield CSG significantly raises the performance bar for internet security applications", says John Gorbutt, StreamShield Sales Director. "As well being able to scan internet content at ultra-high speeds that have, until now, been unachievable using conventional methods, we have also designed the CSG so that it can combine technologies from different vendors into one highly efficient device. We are delighted that O2 shares our vision of the Internet and we look forward to working with them in their quest to offer a safer, cleaner internet service."

Cameron Black, Head of Broadband Network Design at O2, comments: "After an extensive review of various solutions we selected Detica because of the unrivalled performance and high-end scalability that its StreamShield Content Security Gateway solution delivers."

"Our current cybersecurity attitude is not effective" says Detica's Joel Bagnal at IA08 Conference

2008-06-16T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, has appointed former US Deputy Assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security, Joel Bagnal, as Executive Vice-President for its US government operation, based in Washington D.C. Mr Bagnal will give his first UK speech for Detica at the prestigious IA08 Government Information Assurance conference at the Park Plaza Riverbank hotel in London on Wednesday 18 June 2008.

Mr Bagnal will speak at the IA08 Conference on 'A Risk Management Approach to Securing Cyberspace', where he will present new methodologies to manage the growing risks and threats to national and international cybersecurity.

Commenting on the theme for his speech at IA08, Mr Bagnal says: "The growth of cyberspace and the explosion of data volumes, created by present-day Internet and global telecommunications networks, have created a highly complex environment. This presents a significant security challenge for governments because criminals from minor offenders to international terrorists can now threaten individual well-being and national security in ways simply not possible in the past. Cyberspace today gives criminals the capability to conduct illegal activities on a vast scale and in a very dynamic way. Our cybersecurity defences are, in many cases, no longer adequate in today's environment, making us potentially vulnerable to sophisticated attacks."

Prior to his appointment by Detica, Mr Bagnal was the Deputy Assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security, where he chaired the Homeland Security Council Deputies Committee and co-chaired the Counterterrorism Security Group. Along with the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Mr Bagnal led the Homeland Security Council staff. Mr Bagnal has also previously held US Government posts including Special Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Senior Director for Response Policy; Chief of Staff of the Homeland Security Council, Special Assistant to the Commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the United States Northern Command, and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Domestic Counterterrorism.

"Winning the war on terrorism will require the skilful application of resources and capabilities from all facets of our global society," Bagnal stated as he joined Detica. "I'm excited to join a multi-national professional services business that focuses on turning complex information into relevant and actionable intelligence."

Mr Bagnal's presentation, 'A Risk Management Approach to Securing Cyberspace', will take place at 11.15am on Wednesday 18 June at the IA08 Conference. The IA08 Conference is being held on Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 June 2008 at the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel, London. IA08 will be facilitated this year by the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme presenter, Edward Stourton. For more information, visit http://www.iaevent.org.uk.

Detica to deliver data management backbone for Lloyd's capital modelling upgrade

2008-06-10T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc today announces that it has signed an agreement with Lloyd's, the world's leading specialist insurance market, to support Lloyd's in upgrading its capital modelling infrastructure as part of its strategic "Capital Systems Upgrade (CSU)" programme.

The Detica team will work in partnership with Lloyd's IT Group. The partnership will deliver improved data management within an integrated set of capital modelling systems currently under development. The CSU programme is a key initiative in Lloyd's three-year plan to demonstrate that the capital advantages of conducting business at Lloyd's outweigh the costs of mutuality thus placing Lloyd's as the platform of choice for both insurance and reinsurance buyers and sellers.

Detica will deliver improved data integration, data warehousing and information management processes and technology, through Lloyd's existing platforms, utilising its expertise in delivering Information Management Excellence solutions for leading financial services institutions.

Veekash Badal, Senior Manager of Market Reserving and Capital at Lloyds, commented: "This is a key project for Lloyd's and we chose Detica as our data technology partner because of its information intelligence specialism and our confidence in Deticas ability to deliver."

Max Richter, Senior Manager at Detica, commented: "Detica is delighted to be applying its information intelligence expertise in supporting Lloyd's with this strategic initiative. Our team has the right mix of specialised technology skills and deep business domain knowledge to make this project a success."

Government is rushing into web presence without thinking, says Detica

2008-05-19T00:00:00+01:00

The Government is losing control over its websites and not providing the service the public really needs, Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, warns today. In response to a report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which criticised the quality and accessibility of Government websites, Detica believes the Government is failing to plan its web presence properly and listen to the public, leading to a chronic waste of tax-payers' money.

The PAC's 16th report 'Government on the Internet: progress in delivering information and services', revealed the Government still does not know how many websites it has, what their running costs are or what savings have been made by moving services to the web. It also showed that 16% of Government departments do not know how their sites are being used.

Andrew Rolf, Head of Creative Services in Detica's Government business unit, who was involved in the Webby award-winning redesign of the Transport for London (TfL) website, said: "Government departments have rushed into gaining a presence on the web without first considering the purpose of their sites. The situation is not helped by the fact that twelve-month funding cycles do nothing to support strategic development programmes or promote consistency between different sites.

"Traditionally, Government departments have been too biased towards telling their website audiences what to do, rather than listening to them, understanding what they want and designing websites that meet those needs. It's hardly surprising that the resulting websites neither meet the needs of the public nor improve the operational efficiency of the departments in question. Departments lack crucial feedback from the public and many fail to see the importance of a programme of continuous review and improvement. Some really basic customer service tricks are being missed — for example, website owners could ask the IT helpdesk what the most frequent requests are and place answers to those questions on the home page."

In a five-point plan, Detica recommends that Government departments:

Assign clear ownership of a website to promote accountability and ensure the entire breadth of the department is represented
Be clear about the purpose of the site and how it fits into the departments broader objectives and strategy
Research who the target audience is, what they want from the site and through which channel — and then respond to this
Measure and evaluate the benefits of the website from both the end-user and departmental perspective
Ensure that somebody is responsible for maintaining the site once it is live, keeping the content fresh and regularly updated

The TfL website, which was redesigned by Detica and won the Peoples Choice award in the 2008 Webby Awards, was picked out by the PAC report as a rare example of a Government website that is performing well. Rolf concludes: "The reason the TfL site works so well is because it has a cross-departmental steering group with collective ownership for the enhancement and future direction of the site. Lack of governance is the biggest single risk to Government websites. Without this, any website project — whether a new build or a redesign — will quickly find all the same problems being made six months after launch."

Equity derivative bankers see opportunity from increased regulatory scrutiny

2008-05-12T00:00:00+01:00

In their search for improved operational efficiency and straight-through processing (STP), broker dealers are seeing increased opportunity for constructive dialogue with their clients as a direct result of the threat from increased regulatory scrutiny in the equity derivatives market, says Detica, the business and technology consultancy. In its recent survey, "In Search of STP", Detica examined the equity derivative landscape across nine leading investment banks. It found that the sheer diversity of market participants, an explosion in data volumes, increasing product sophistication and varied regulatory jurisdictions are combining to create a complex market environment with significant operational challenges.

Ivo Stoyanov, Executive Manager from Detica's New York office, says "Market evolution and growing operational challenges have brought about increased regulatory scrutiny, however we found that broker dealers are not necessarily considering this a threat. Moreover it gives them a reason to engage in a more focused dialogue with their clients, providing an opportunity to improve operational capabilities." The unique breadth of client types in the equity derivative markets means banks' counterparties are often operationally unsophisticated and unable to process their transactions efficiently, adding to their operational burden.

In this complex equity derivatives landscape, banks have to balance the demand for efficient, lower-cost, centralised technology against the regional needs of their clients and trading organisations. Stoyanov continues, "To succeed, broker dealers have to satisfy the demands of diverse client needs, growing trade volumes and increased regulatory controls. This means investing in improved operating models and new technology. This will enable them to tackle globalization and the demand for lower cost processing, and at the same time deploy front office risk management frameworks to minimise their potential exposure to arbitrage."

The Detica survey confirmed that the equity derivative market is lagging behind its OTC cousins in fixed income in the development of electronic trading and basic operational STP. Electronic trading remains in its infancy: although a handful of single-dealer platforms are in existence, Detica found that across the survey participants both capability and appetite are low.

Detica also found that the most significant investment across all participant banks remains focused on improving basic STP rates for vanilla transactions. Exploiting market initiatives in the interest rate and credit derivative markets, the leading equity derivative dealers are either using, or planning to use, both Swapswire and DTCC for trade affirmation and confirmation matching. Stoyanov concludes "Banks are seeing some benefit from exploiting their prior experience in fixed income OTC, however in equity derivatives, the development of a fully centralised post-trade processing model is still a few years off."

People's Choice Award goes to Detica and Transport for London in global Web 'Oscars'

2008-05-08T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the specialist business and technology consultancy, and Transport for London (TfL) have won the People's Choice award in the 2008 Webby Awards, the leading international award honouring excellence in interactive design, creativity, usability and functionality on the Internet.

The TfL website, redesigned by Detica and TfL's new media team, was one of 10,000 entries from more than 60 countries considered by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.

"Nearly 500,000 votes were cast in the Webby People's Voice Awards and the people have spoken. This is a tremendous honour - your work truly represents the best of the Web," said David-Michel Davies, Executive Director of The Webby Awards. "The Transport for London website is a testament to the skill, ingenuity and vision of its creators."

This award follows hot on the heels of a special commendation for the Detica and TfL team in the recent Design Week Awards, in which the innovative design of the TfL website came second only to Apple's iPhone.

Rhys Davies, Head of Creative Services at Detica, commented: "We are so pleased to have won The People's Choice Award as our work for TfL is all about the public and making life easier for them. Our biggest task here was creating a user-friendly solution to a complex, information-intensive problem - we are incredibly proud that our expertise in this area has been recognised and rewarded."

Detica specialists in user-centred design worked alongside TfL's New Media team to completely re-design their web services channel. The team's challenge was to reorganise and improve the website, with a specific focus on helping users find information and services as easily as possible. As a result they have transformed the original government website into a compelling and engaging consumer-focused portal capable of adopting the latest developments in digital technology.

Clampdown on election fraud could backfire on British democracy, warns Detica

2008-05-01T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the business and technology consultancy, today warns that proposed tactics to eradicate fraud from UK elections could lead to a significant fall in voting and have limited impact on the root causes of the problem. Responding to a report issued this week by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which says the UK electoral system is vulnerable to fraud, Detica believes it may be necessary to make some low level trade-offs with security to allow open, anonymous and inclusive voting in British society.

Detica argues tactics like placing tight security controls on postal and online voting would be counterproductive, as they would make these services more difficult to use and deter genuine voters. In the last UK general election in 2005, less than two thirds of the public turned out to vote, something which has caused the Electoral Commission concern. There has also been widespread debate that a low voter turn-out in today's London mayoral elections would help extremist, minority parties such as the BNP to gain seats on the London Assembly.

Anthony Golledge, from Detica's Government division, says: "The UK can't achieve a completely fraud-proof voting system without closing down opportunities for people to vote easily. Realistically, no system can ever be secure and readily accessible to a group as large as the UK electorate, without vulnerability to fraud being inherent in the system, so a compromise must be made. Some of the identity verification methods being mooted at the moment – such as presenting photo ID to vote – are just superficial solutions which don't address the root causes of fraud. Longer term strategic monitoring of fraud would add more value to improving the electoral system.

"We're not suggesting the UK government gives up fighting electoral fraud, but we do advise it adopts a more targeted approach. For election fraud, the key focus should be on the systems that distribute ballot papers or count votes – sophisticated, serious fraudsters will penetrate these high-level sources, where they can make the most impact."

One of the most effective ways to fight fraud is to use new intelligence technologies to analyse data for suspicious patterns. Detica believes data on voting activity should be examined to identify unusual patterns such as disproportionate voting from a particular geographic area or age group. The UK government is already using these techniques to fight tax evasion and smuggling, by concentrating on the riskiest members of society.

Golledge concludes: "There are lessons to be learned here from the banking sector which, because of tighter money-laundering regulations and significant online fraud problems, has made real progress with identify verification methods, such as chip and pin credit cards, registered signatures and even fingerprints. The banks have also learned, however, that strengthening one part of the process just moves the fraud elsewhere. This is a problem which a secure election system will have to address.

"Ultimately the government needs to make a tough decision on whether it's worth the time and investment to make elections as fraud-free as possible, when the likely outcome is that this will only lead to a lower number of people voting. We believe a better approach is to get smarter and more targeted on tackling the serious causes of the problem."

Detica and Transport for London nominated for Web 'Oscar'

2008-04-28T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the specialist business and technology consultancy, and Transport for London (TfL) have been nominated for two awards in the 2008 Webby Awards, the leading international award honouring excellence in interactive design, creativity, usability and functionality on the Internet.

The TfL website, redesigned by Detica and TfL's New Media team, was one of 8,000 entries from more than 60 countries considered by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities. Detica and TfL are nominated in the Government category for both The Webby Award and The People's Voice award.

"The Webby Awards honours the outstanding work that is setting the standards for the Internet," said David-Michel Davies, executive director of The Webby Awards. "The Transport for London website selection is a testament to the skill, ingenuity and vision of its creators."

The Webby Award nomination follows hot on the heels of a special commendation for the Detica and TfL team in the recent Design Week Awards, in which the innovative design of the TfL website came second only to Apple's iPhone.

Rhys Davies, Head of Creative Services at Detica, commented: "It's a real honour for Detica to be nominated for such a highly respected industry award. We are incredibly proud of our work with TfL, which I believe complements and builds on our thirty-year heritage as innovative thinkers and designers of solutions to complex, information-intensive problems."

Caroline Little, Head of New Media at Transport for London said: "With 10 million journeys a day across the TfL network, we've listened to our passengers and made it easier for them to get essential information from the site. All the information passengers need to know about the Tube, bus, Docklands Light Railway and river services, walking and cycling, is now at their finger tips."

Detica and Progress Apama launch Market Surveillance Accelerator

2008-04-22T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the specialist business and technology consultancy, and Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), the global supplier of application infrastructure software used to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications, today jointly announced the launch of the Detica Market Surveillance Accelerator powered by the Progress® Apama® Complex Event Processing (CEP) platform.

The Detica Market Surveillance Accelerator enables financial institutions and exchanges to monitor trading activity and identify suspicious transactions, including market manipulative behaviour such as 'front-running', 'painting the tape', 'washing' and 'ramping'. The Accelerator takes Detica's expert industry knowledge and deep technical understanding of trade surveillance and encapsulates this within pre-built Apama technology. The Accelerator can then be deployed and calibrated to meet client-specific requirements. In addition to the market surveillance business logic, pre-built - and fully customisable - dashboards are also offered for trade and market surveillance monitoring.

The Detica Market Surveillance Accelerator brings together the technical know-how, market leadership and experience arising from the Detica and Progress Apama partnership that has already delivered major market surveillance projects at organisations such as the FSA and Turquoise.

Simon Asplen-Taylor, Head of Market and Regulatory Services at Detica, commented: "Market surveillance is all the more challenging due to demands of algorithmic trading and the availability of complex derivatives, cross-border trading and other market factors. The ability to understand what is happening in the market as it happens, and respond quickly enough to pre-empt market abuse, are important factors in building and sustaining market confidence. This partnership combines our knowledge of market behaviour and the Apama platform in a way that can deliver that confidence."

Dr. John Bates, founder and general manager, Apama Division, Progress Software, commented: "Market surveillance will be an increasingly critical requirement in establishing confidence within markets. Recent events are ample testimony to the need to be vigilant in monitoring trading activities. Failure to quickly detect suspicious behaviour will risk wreaking havoc in the markets, impair market confidence and injure firm reputations. We are delighted to have a partner that is so knowledgeable about the intricacies of surveillance and can apply the power of the Apama platform to address those requirements. Partners with domain knowledge are a significant component of the Apama growth strategy."

Many UK banks ill-equipped to comply with new banking code on consumer debt management, warns Detica

2008-04-14T00:00:00+01:00

Inefficient, out-dated management and analysis of customer data is threatening the UK banking industry's ability to support growing numbers of consumers falling into the downwards debt spiral, warns Detica, the business and technology consultancy. Many banks and building societies are likely to struggle to actively support these consumers under the requirements of the new Banking Codes which came into force at the beginning of April.

Under the new UK voluntary Banking Code, banks and building societies should provide more support to consumers heading into debt problems, including actively identifying and contacting those customers who may be at risk. Detica believes that a significant number of UK retail banks are not currently equipped to identify these customers under the new Code's requirements.

Maggie Scott, Executive Manager from Detica's Financial Services unit, says: "Due to a stream of recent regulatory requirements, banks actually have a great deal of data in place to build an accurate profile of their borrowers. Historically, however, banks have only used this data to assess their customers' financial circumstances when applying for credit. The challenge now is for them to apply this intelligence to identify financial stress and to act on the information to get in touch with customers to discuss ways to support them. If banks can't do this, then consumers won't benefit from the aims of the new Code and we risk debt spiralling further."

Scott adds: "Key to success for banks is creating the right organisational change. They need to put the insight developed by back office analytical teams at the fingertips of frontline customer service agents who are speaking to consumers directly."

Detica urges banks to focus on making more connections between the networks of evidence they already hold in order to proactively identify those customers who are falling into debt. Credit cards, for example, are often the first to show signs of stress. If a customer increases their cash withdrawals and, at the same time, reduces their monthly repayment to a minimum, these two combined behaviours are a strong indicator that the customer is struggling to meet their financial commitments. Another example is when cash withdrawals from a customer's credit card account coincide with deposits being made into a current account to keep it within the overdraft limit to pay bills or other loan repayments.

Scott concludes, "The commitments made within the new Banking Code should compel banks to look again at their responsible lending policies and how to translate them into action. The benefits are twofold - customers receive the support they need before it's too late and banks can reduce the level of debt that turns bad. By taking a more consultative approach with the customer and generating and exploiting insight from data they already hold, banks can play an important role in warding off the spread of the US consumer debt problem in the UK."

Detica selected to ensure secure military information exchange

2008-04-09T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the specialist business and technology consultancy, announced today that it has been awarded two significant contracts in the defence market. The contracts, worth approximately £2.3m to Detica and won in partnership with Atkins, involve the provision of Programme Management Office and Enterprise Architecture Design services to the MOD's CIPHER Programme being delivered by the Defence Cryptosecurity Authority.

The CIPHER programme will provide new cryptographic equipment and services to ensure secure information exchange across all military operations and the secure distribution of the associated technology components. As part of the programme the Defence Cryptosecurity Authority, supported by Detica, is also leading the procurement of similar capabilities across the rest of government on behalf of the Cabinet Office (the Secure Management Infrastructure project, part of the Information Assurance Technology Programme). The CIPHER Programme size is expected to be in the region of £200m.

The work will exploit Detica's industry-leading skills and experience in information assurance and enterprise architecture design. Over a three-year period the two defence contracts will address the challenges and issues associated with MOD and wider government's cryptographic capability acquisition programme.

Dr Tony Klein, Director of Detica's Defence Business, said: "We are delighted to have been selected to undertake this work which strengthens our longstanding relationship with the Defence Cryptosecurity Authority. We look forward to working in close collaboration with the DCA and Atkins to ensure the successful delivery of the CIPHER programme."

Detica secures contracts totalling 18.1 million pound with the Metropolitan Police Service

2008-03-31T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the information intelligence specialist, is pleased to announce that it has secured contracts totalling £18.1 million for Mobility Projects with the Metropolitan Police Service. The contracts awarded will cover the provision and support of Operational PDAs, Mobile Data Terminals and associated infrastructure and will be delivered over the next five years.

Detica's rogue trader stance backed by FSA report

2008-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

In the light of a newly-published report by the FSA, Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the specialist business and technology consultancy, today repeated its warning that banks response to the recent spate of rogue trader incidents and operational failures should go beyond reviewing and tightening up their existing controls.

The FSA, in its latest commentary responding to recent events at Société Générale, has suggested banks integrate and aggregate the output of their existing controls so a true, trader-level, view of risk can be monitored across the entire business lifecycle. This echoes advice issued last week by Detica. As Simon Elkington, Executive Manager from Deticas Investment Banking unit, comments: We completely agree with the FSA only by breaking down operational control silos will banks be in a position to truly manage potentially catastrophic operational risks and failures.

Extending the idea that Banks need to adopt a radical new approach to managing their risk, Elkington argues that financial institutions could learn something from the gaming industry. Casinos dont trust anyone staff or customers and a strong surveillance and control culture is espoused, he says. While we would never expect a bank to operate like a casino, there are nonetheless some very important principles at play here.

In order to compete effectively, banks need to be agile and innovative and therefore depend on the honesty of both their employees and customers. But, at the same time, they must ensure that an appropriate level of monitoring is maintained. Elkington comments: Advanced information intelligence technologies can now be deployed to monitor suspicious trading activity and effectively play the role of the pit boss. So effective is this technology, Elkington argues, that it can uncover networks of suspicious or non-compliant behaviour without disrupting the culture of trust that exists between the bank, its staff and its customers.

Longer-term this approach to tackling risk could yield a silver lining. Its quite possible, says Elkington, to adapt the methods used to track down networks of fraud and abuse to make money for instance, by identifying previously unknown operational inefficiencies.

For more information on the networked approach to operational control recommended by Detica download the 'Preventing operational losses: are tighter controls really the answer?' whitepaper now from the publications area of our website.

Detica cracks credit abuse with Detica NetReveal

2008-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the information intelligence specialist, today launches Detica NetRevealÃÂÂ®5, the next generation of its crime-busting social network analytics software. The groundbreaking solution Ã™"Â unveiled at the CIFAS Ã™"Fighting Application FraudÃ™"Â conference today in central London Ã™"Â provides retail banks with one of the most powerful tools available to combat credit abuse and other forms of non-compliance.

Credit abuse networks are a growing problem for the retail banking sector and a source of increasing concern given the ongoing credit crunch. Variously known as Ã™"first party lending fraudÃ™"Â, Ã™"sleeper fraudÃ™"Â and Ã™"bust-out fraudÃ™"Â, credit abuse involves organised fraudsters making false statements on application forms in order to gain credit which they have no intention of paying back. As Andy Cobb, Director of Business Development at Detica, comments: Ã™"There is also a growing trend in credit applicants being manipulated by organised fraudsters even though they may not have made any material falsehoods. This high risk activity currently falls between the Ã™"organised first party fraudÃ™' and Ã™"bad debtÃ™' definitions being debated by the banking industry. We believe a better approach is to let the data drive the definitions, not the other way round Ã™"Â someone intends to take money from the bank and they need to be stoppedÃ™"Â.

Detica NetRevealÃÂÂ®5 is the latest extension to the successful Detica NetRevealÃÂÂ® portfolio Ã™"Â a suite of solutions that utilises social network analysis to fight fraud and serious crime across the insurance, financial services and government sectors. The crime-busting capabilities of Detica NetRevealÃÂÂ® grabbed the headlines last summer when the UKÃ™'s Insurance Fraud Bureau announced that the softwareÃ™'s sophisticated analytics had enabled it to expose insurance fraud networks leading to 74 arrests in the Bureau's first year. Since then HSBC and RBS Insurance have added Detica NetRevealÃÂÂ® to their counter-fraud armouries.

Detica NetRevealÃÂÂ®5 takes fraud prevention one step further, enabling high-speed checks of credit applicantsÃ™' details against pre-scored criminal networks during the live application process. Until today, banks lacked this pre-emptive analytical capability to identify fraudsters and credit abusers and prevent them from becoming customers. Furthermore, as well as working in the Ã™"front officeÃ™"Â with new customer applications, Detica NetRevealÃÂÂ®5 also functions in the Ã™"back officeÃ™"Â where existing customers are scored as they request additional credit facilities.

Cobb continues: Ã™"Detica NetRevealÃÂÂ®5 will give banks the most detailed view ever of the individuals to whom they are considering lending. Not only it is a breakthrough in preventing credit abuse, but its ability to explain transparently why a customer, application or linked-in network might be suspicious is unique in the field. We are delighted to be able to offer financial institutions the means of significantly improving the way they manage credit risk in these increasingly turbulent economic times.Ã™"Â

Tighter controls will not prevent rogue trading, says Detica

2008-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the specialist business and technology consultancy, is urging investment banks to think again before burdening their business lines with ever-tighter controls in order to avoid incidents involving rogue trading and operational failure.

In a white paper published today, Detica argues that the traditional tightening up of the existing control framework is not the answer. As Simon Elkington, Executive Manager from Deticas Investment Banking unit, comments: Not only does this impose an ever-increasing burden of cost and complexity on the bank but, more worryingly, it generates a false sense of security.

Instead, Elkington argues, banks should adopt a networked operational risk model that moves beyond traditional silo-based approaches to risk management. Once separate business, technical and physical controls are linked together then fraudsters and abusers are confronted by a tight web of interconnected defences, each one reinforcing and being reinforced by its neighbours.

With a networked control model in place, Elkington goes on to argue that banks can take a more proactive approach to identifying operational failures by deploying advanced information intelligence systems that identify anomalous patterns and behaviours at a much earlier stage than is currently the norm.

Elkington concludes that the circumstances that have led to recent operational losses are typical of any number of banking institutions and are likely to happen again. Banks who believed, post-SOX and Basel II, that regulatory compliance, internal controls and surveillance could be put on the back burner must think again, he warns.

Turquoise selects Detica and Progress Apama for real-time market surveillance system

2008-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L) (Detica), the information intelligence specialist, is pleased to note the following announcement.

Turquoise, the multi-lateral trading facility (MTF) established by nine leading European investment banks today announced that it is partnering with Progress Software and Detica to deliver a real-time Market Surveillance System. The combination of the Progress® Apama® Complex Event Processing (CEP) Platform and Deticas market surveillance and trading expertise will deliver a real-time and post-trade market surveillance system that will capture breaches of trading rules, root out market irregularities and develop enhanced trading execution analytics.

Commenting on todays announcement, Eli Lederman, Chief Executive of Turquoise said: Market surveillance is a vital requirement for any stock exchange. By choosing the Apama platform and deploying Deticas expertise, we also gain a very flexible system. This will allow us to add value to the market data we collect and offer further client services such as detailed analysis of transactions and a better understanding of price improvement and performance.

Dr John Bates, Founder and General Manager of the Apama division of Progress Software, adds: The selection of the Apama platform by Turquoise further affirms Apamas market leadership in delivering mission critical CEP-powered business applications. The real-time detection of complex patterns in market activity will discourage any potential abusers, maintain an orderly market, and promote liquidity.

Our brief is very clear: to design, build and deploy a robust, flexible market surveillance platform within very tight timelines, to Turquoises satisfaction, says Simon Asplen-Taylor, Head of Market and Regulatory Services at Detica. Our team has the right mix of advanced technology skills and deep business domain knowledge to make this happen. We are proud to be part of an exciting venture that will ensure a fair and orderly market and justify the trust that Turquoise has invested in the Detica-Progress Apama partnership.

Detica urges businesses to get resilient to danger

2008-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, is urging organisations to push resilience to the top of the agenda as it predicts businesses will face increasing security threats during 2008. With a marked rise in organisations disrupted by hard-to-predict events, both man-made and natural, Detica is calling for businesses to act now to put better defences in place before it is too late.

Fred Chedham, Head of Detica’s Business Resilience Services, says: “Businesses need to change their approach to security because the threat landscape has changed considerably in recent years and companies haven’t adapted to take this into account. For example, the UK economy loses around £14 billion a year because of financial crime and we’re not talking about careless business or bank robberies. The data explosion and the Internet have enabled criminals to steal identities and commit serious crime with increasing sophistication. Globalisation and the explosion in social and corporate networking also mean businesses are far more vulnerable to seemingly remote disruptive events.”

Faced with this complexity, Detica argues that businesses need to move beyond “security” to “resilience”. This means tearing down the walls between physical and virtual security and integrating risk management consistently across the organisation. Furthermore, businesses also need to take a “network view” of risk: identifying the cause of events in their ever-widening networks and understanding the complex fault lines that underlie their operational environments. The Northern Rock crisis was a prime example of unidentified risk which had a far-reaching impact upon a wide variety of organisations and individuals.

Chedham concludes: “Our experience from large-scale resilience change programmes tells us that businesses can never be completely safe from danger, but they can make sure that they’re as resilient to threats as possible. Only by pushing resilience to the top of the agenda and engaging senior management will businesses be able to confront and absorb the security shockwaves of 2008 and beyond.”

HSBC adds Detica NetReveal® to retail banking fraud prevention portfolio

2008-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the information intelligence specialist, today announced that HSBC Bank Plc is adding Detica NetReveal® to its portfolio of retail banking fraud prevention measures.

The Detica NetReveal® solution for Retail Banking, chosen by HSBC, enables banks to reduce their exposure to fraud by applying Detica’s unique social network analysis and scoring technology. By identifying behavioural connections between accounts and customers not apparent to traditional systems, and taking an innovative approach to assessing overall risk, the Detica NetReveal® solution can detect a wider range of fraud not found using traditional scoring methods.

Brendan Pickering, Head of Group Fraud Technology at HSBC, says: “Our decision to purchase Detica NetReveal® was based on the significant return we achieved very rapidly from a pilot study. We are delighted to be working with Detica, a company with a strong background in innovative information intelligence solutions”.

Andy Cobb, Director of Business Development at Detica, says: “We are delighted that HSBC, one of the world’s leading global banks, has chosen our solution. We believe this supports our view that Detica NetReveal® is fast becoming the benchmark for combating organised fraud in the Retail Financial Services industry”.

Detica recognised as "Top Innovative Supplier" by BT

2008-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

StreamShield, part of Detica Group plc (DCA.L), has been awarded the 2007 BT Supplier Innovation Award for supplying BTs retail division with a system for tracking down and disrupting professional spammers on the BT broadband network. StreamShield was selected by a panel of BT judges from a list of 130 companies as the winning supplier. Monique Shivanandan, Managing Director of BT Retail Service Design at BT Retail, comments: We are delighted to award StreamShield the BT Supplier Innovation Award 2007 in recognition of their highly successful and innovative achievement.

Approximately 80 per cent of e-mails, equivalent to 6.5 billion emails a day, are spam. These unwanted emails are not only generated by professional spammers, but also by botnets, where the PCs of unsuspecting customers are secretly infected with rogue software to form a network that generates vast quantities of unwanted spam. These infected machines can be used in turn to attack other PCs and websites.

The StreamShield system is currently processing more than 600 million emails a day for BT, generating detailed intelligence on the location and size of spam-related problems originating from the BT network. This allows BT to focus on contacting customers and helping them to rid their PCs of spam infections, thereby preventing possible identity fraud and virus infection. Shivanandan continues: Spam is a global menace, causing annoyance, disruption and potential financial loss to Internet users. BT now has an innovative, cutting-edge solution that allows us to tackle this issue proactively and create a hostile environment for professional spammers.

Tom Black, Chief Executive, Detica, adds: StreamShield developed this spam-attacking solution, officially named Content Forensics, with large Internet Service Providers such as BT in mind. We are delighted to receive this award from BT as acknowledgement of our unique approach to tackling the scourge of spam.

Detica delivers trade messaging system to push fixed income e-trading forward

2007-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

A groundbreaking trade messaging system called LiquidityHub, which provides the fixed income markets with unprecedented access between dealers and their clients and greater price transparency, has been successfully delivered by business and technology consultancy firm Detica.

LiquidityHub, launched last month, aggregates liquidity and market data from leading dealers and distributes them electronically via Bloomberg and Reuters. It uses a new electronic trading protocol developed by Detica, Request for Stream (RFS), which allows the buy-side to view a stream of executable prices from a select group of dealers once a trade session is initiated.

This innovative technology promises to boost transparency on price trading levels since traders using LiquidityHub will be able to view actual price information in real time. It will focus initially on Euro and USD interest rate swaps (IRS) with US Treasuries due to be launched later this year.

As Detica’s Head of Market Services, Andrew Marshall, comments: “LiquidityHub is expected to further accelerate the growing trend for electronic trading in the fixed income markets, by facilitating greater price transparency and direct access to the deep liquidity pools of leading banks in the fixed income arena. This, in turn, should improve liquidity as new buy-side firms enter the electronic market”.

Marshall further stated: “LiquidityHub is designed to be robust, flexible, open, scalable and easily maintainable. The architecture provides a separate pricing engine and negotiation engine which manage market data and RFS negotiation respectively. It offers a wide range of integration options so that dealers and distributors have easy access to the system”.

Detica was chosen as the technology partner by the LiquidityHub consortium in December 2006, and has delivered the new system, which is designed to meet the needs of 16 investment banks and their clients, in nine months.

Bob Macleod, LiquidityHub CEO, comments: “Detica, our technology partner, was instrumental in enabling LiquidityHub to be brought to market in such an impressive timeframe. They demonstrated their capability to define and build a reliable, high performance system, working collaboratively with the LiquidityHub and dealer teams”.

Employees’ social plans are causing corporate data meltdown, says Detica

2007-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, says that companies are failing to identify the real culprit behind their lack of storage space and the huge volumes of data they are hoarding. Regulators and new compliance rules such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II are often blamed for huge data gluts, because they require companies to store more information. Detica believes that this is actually a red herring – the real culprits of corporate data overload are employees chatting over e-mail and sharing photographs of their personal lives — children, holidays and office parties.

Detica’s Head of Data Stewardship, Chris Saunders, says that staff communicating over email is one of the key factors in creating data excess: “In the Web 2.0 culture, we’ve stopped talking to one another directly — the norm is to communicate electronically, even to people just a few metres away from us in the office. E-mail is widely used for office banter, social chats and group discussions about after-work drinks, or to circulate large digital files with cartoon jokes, MP3 files or photographs.

“There may not be anything wrong with this in itself, but it can quickly mount up — especially if teams are also emailing large project files (such as PowerPoint presentations) to each other every time they make a small change. Companies need to encourage their staff to delete junk emails and large, unnecessary or out-of-date files regularly from their personal data stores.”

Saunders believes that companies can be missing a trick if they don’t get employees on board with data management. Central to this is ensuring that employees are checking the shelf-life of the information they are storing and regularly deleting out-dated, duplicated or fragmented archived files. In fact, Saunders says that libraries are great examples of best practice in this type of information management.

Saunders concludes: “The good news is that, once you get your employees to understand the challenge and take responsibility for managing their own information hoards, not only will the performance of your servers be streamlined, but you’ll get a more organised and up-to-date archive of data which can be used more effectively for business intelligence.”

StreamShield Networks adds support to the Internet Watch Foundation

2007-10-24T00:00:00+01:00

On Internet Watch Foundation Awareness Day, StreamShield Networks — part of Detica, the business and technology consultancy — is pleased to be a funding council member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). A self-regulatory body, funded by the EU and the wider online industry, the IWF’s mission is to work in partnership with internet service providers, telecommunication companies, mobile operators, software providers, the police, Government and the public to minimise the availability of illegal online content.

Websites today can be created, hosted and accessed from all over the world, by anyone, at anytime. There is a vast amount of data available on virtually every subject imaginable and there is no doubt that the Internet has changed the way we communicate. Although a substantial amount of Internet content provides consumers with an interesting, positive and educational experience, the freedom offered by the Internet, combined with this lack of direct governance by a central body, means there is always the potential for misuse.

“StreamShield is extremely pleased to be supporting the Internet Watch Foundation in their efforts,” said John Gorbutt, Sales Director and IWF Funding Council Member. “The IWF provides an invaluable service helping make the Internet a safer place for everyone. StreamShield will continue to help the IWF, service providers and mobile operators in addressing this hugely important topic.”

Detica and Cloudmark partner to provide ISPs with network-layer security against botnets and outbound spam

2007-10-08T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), a business and technology consulting firm specialising in information intelligence, and Cloudmark Inc, the global leader in carrier-grade messaging security, today announced a technology partnership to enable transparent, high-performance outbound messaging protection for Internet service providers (ISPs). The joint solution delivers unparalleled outbound spam detection and filtering for all e-mail traffic on the ISPs’ network and helps service providers identify subscriber PCs that have been compromised by botnets. Both companies are participating in this week’s Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) 11th General Meeting in Washington, D.C. This is a members-only event focused on preserving electronic messaging from online exploits and abuse while enhancing user trust and confidence and ensuring the deliverability of legitimate messages. Announced at MAAWG, the new Cloudmark and Detica solution effectively combats the growing problem of outbound abuse, thereby keeping ISPs’ network pipes clean, subscribers happy and their own brand reputations safe.

Today, of the 600 million computers currently on the Internet, it is estimated that between 100 and 150 million are already part of botnets, large groups of computers that have been compromised by professional spammers and used, without the knowledge of the PC owner, to send high volumes of spam. The computers that are part of these botnets, called zombies, account for about 70 percent of all spam traffic sent. The high volume of spam traffic generated by botnets has created a serious problem for both receiving and sending ISPs. ISPs that unwittingly transport abusive messages face blacklisting, which impacts subscriber satisfaction and their brand reputation.

Previously, ISPs were unable to detect or filter all abusive outbound traffic because e-mails sent through botnets are usually sent directly to the Internet without going through the ISPs’ mail transfer agents (MTAs). In the past, the only way to stop outbound spam was by closing “Port 25”, a port used to send e-mail, and requiring sender authentication. This process is extremely costly for service providers and can create a poor user experience for subscribers.

Detica’s StreamShield Content Security Gateway (CSG) is designed to sit in front of a service provider’s mail stream as a transparent filtering device through which all e-mail traffic flows, even those messages that are not currently hitting the MTA. This serves as a first line of defence against outgoing malware, spyware, adware and spam. To further enhance its network-level platform, Detica has integrated Cloudmark Authority, the industry-leading messaging anti-abuse technology. Cloudmark Authority leverages Advanced Message Fingerprinting™ technology based on innovative, high-performance algorithms and real-time, corroborated feedback from the Cloudmark Global Threat Network to stop spam, phishing and viruses with greater than 98 percent accuracy and near zero false positives.

Together, Detica and Cloudmark are enabling ISPs to transparently intercept, inspect and filter out all outbound spam on their networks without the need to close Port 25 or reconfigure existing messaging environments. In addition, the joint solution allows ISPs to identify and stop zombie PCs from sending spam. Now, all subscribers are protected from both inbound and outbound messaging abuse without the need for any change to their e-mail systems. Those subscribers with compromised PCs who were once automatically blacklisted by their provider can proactively and accurately be identified and sent for further remediation. ISPs, whose reputation is often affected by publication of pervasive rankings of providers with the worst spam infection rates, can better protect their brand while ensuring the most positive user experience for their subscribers.

“Cloudmark’s technology is already the choice of more than 90 service providers around the world for stopping spam, viruses and phishing attacks from entering their networks,” said Jamie de Guerre, CTO at Cloudmark. “Now, our partnership with Detica allows us to help ISPs stop the increasingly prolific volume of abusive traffic being sent from their networks through compromised subscriber PCs. Together, Cloudmark and Detica are introducing a new approach to content security in the network by enabling service providers to detect all outbound abuse from their networks, as well as identify infected PCs for remediation, all without going through the steps of closing Port 25. The joint solution not only helps protect subscribers and ensures that they have a positive e-mail experience, but also empowers ISPs to stop being part of the spam problem and become part of the spam solution.”

“We are delighted to strengthen our relationship with Cloudmark and together work towards contributing to the global fight against spam,” said Tom Black, Detica Group Chief Executive Officer. “In deciding on the best message filtering solution to integrate with the StreamShield Content Security platform, we explored several technologies and found that none offered the accuracy, low false positive rate and high performance offered by Cloudmark Authority. We firmly believe that the unique combination of the StreamShield Content Security platform and Cloudmark Authority offers ISPs an innovative solution to stopping outbound spam and defeating botnets on their networks.”

Detica and SAS unveil advanced fraud management solution

2007-10-03T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc (DCA.L), the information intelligence specialist, and SAS, the leader in business intelligence (BI), have signed an agreement to offer an advanced fraud management solution, based on proven technologies, to US banks and insurers. SAS® Fraud Management: Network Investigation and Analysis powered by Detica NetReveal® is built on a foundation of powerful SAS BI and analytic software, the ground-breaking Detica NetReveal® fraud detection and investigation solution, and the financial services and fraud management domain expertise of both partners.

Detica will be the exclusive services provider for all sales made under the agreement, which will focus initially on the North American banking and insurance markets. Today’s announcement was made at The Premier Business Leadership Series conference in Las Vegas.

The crime-busting capabilities of Detica NetReveal® have been grabbing headlines over the summer. In August, the UK’s Insurance Fraud Bureau announced that the software had enabled it to expose insurance fraud networks leading to 74 arrests and a significant return on investment in the Bureau's first year. Detica NetReveal® is now being used and evaluated by many of the UK’s largest banking and insurance companies, as well as leading Government, law enforcement and telecommunications organisations, to detect and investigate organised fraud. Existing customers have seen a ten-fold reduction in false alarms and a tripling in investigator efficiency.

As an enterprise-wide fraud-detection system, SAS Fraud Management provides powerful, advanced analytics that work across multiple data sources. It is completely integrated with the latest anti-fraud measures, including Chip & PIN technology, enabling banks and insurers to detect and prevent crime—in real time—across the entire spectrum of fraudulent practices. With SAS Fraud Management, financial services firms can accurately score every transaction at the point of sale in order to identify possible fraud and reduce fraud losses.

Martin Sutherland, Head of Strategic Ventures at Detica, said: “Detica NetReveal® is unique because it uncovers the hidden relationships and behaviours between people and data which traditional systems just don’t pick up. Today’s organised fraudsters are wise to traditional detection methods and use false identities to hide their activities and avoid capture. Our experts have developed highly sophisticated analytics that link data into networks and then score these networks against a wide range of criminal and fraudulent behaviours. We’re pleased to be working with SAS, the premier BI and analytics company, to introduce Detica NetReveal® to the US market.”

According to a recent industry report, US companies lose 5% of their annual revenues to fraud, which equates to approximately $652 billion in total fraud losses (source: Pipal Research, 2006). SAS® Fraud Management: Network Investigation and Analysis powered by Detica NetReveal® will provide powerful new fraud analysis and investigation capabilities and help financial institutions better analyse and detect illicit behaviour.

David Macdonald, General Manager of Financial Services for SAS Americas, said: “The addition of Detica NetReveal® adds a significant new dimension to our powerful line-up of anti-fraud offerings. The combination of SAS and Detica is great news for our banking and insurance customers in the US, and bad news for fraudsters.”

Ground-breaking new ways to achieve high speed risk analysis revealed in Cannes

2007-09-24T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy and Algorithmics, a world leader in providing enterprise risk solutions, are previewing a new high-performance risk analysis tool. The new module – introduced at the Algorithmics Risk Conference today in Cannes – uses innovative technology and specially engineered software programming to operate at impressive speed.

The new risk analysis tool can reduce the time required for specific types of accurate, complex risk analysis by a factor of over 100 compared to contemporary CPUs (central processing units). This innovation comes at a time when risk analysis and management is increasingly critical for financial services companies operating in highly unpredictable markets.

The new module is a sophisticated jointly-engineered extension which can be incorporated into Algorithmics’ products such as Algo Market Analytics and Algo Credit Exposure. The module provides coverage for a range of widely-traded instruments - including interest rate, basis and cross-currency swaps, forward rate agreements and FX Forwards - which allows banks to simulate many different scenarios much more quickly than previous technology allowed.

The software has demonstrated the ability to simulate 100,000 interest rate swaps across 5,000 different scenarios and 100 different time points, in less than one hour on a single commodity CPU. This level of speed and accuracy is considerably beyond the current performance through conventional software engineering techniques.

Tom Black, Chief Executive, Detica, says: “As recent events have demonstrated, fast, and effective risk management is crucial in today’s volatile markets. Working with Algorithmics, we have delivered the next generation of analytics performance.”

Michael Zerbs, Chief Executive of Algorithmics, adds: “To attain high performance with high volumes of positions, banks have either had to invest in large amounts of IT hardware or simplify their valuation models to receive results in a set time-frame. Through our partnership with Detica, we have developed techniques which allow financial institutions to undertake large scale risk simulations at record speed, without requiring a huge amount of equipment, power and floor space”.

The pre-production version of the new module is now available for customer evaluation.

Computer forensics at heart of UK's largest-ever counterfeit medicines bust

2007-09-18T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Forensics investigators have provided incriminating evidence in one of the biggest counterfeit medicines conspiracies in British history.

As part of an investigation by the UKs Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the Detica team reconstructed emails and other documents and analysed metadata in files to produce evidence for the courts that helped lead to the convictions of the man who masterminded the British arm of the conspiracy, and three of his cohorts.

The case has been described by the MHRA as the largest of its kind ever heard by a British criminal court.

The multi-million pound scam involved selling counterfeit tablets of Viagra, Cialis (both for erectile dysfunction) and Propecia (for treating baldness), containing only 90% of the normal active ingredient, to unsuspecting customers many buying on-line for up to £20 each, having often been acquired by the vendors for as little as 50 US cents. Tens of thousands of the fake tablets, manufactured in illicit factories in China, Pakistan and Asia, were bought in the UK, America, the Bahamas and Mexico, involving scores of businesses, both real and fake.

Andy Clark, head of Detica Forensics, said: Our digital forensics linked the man at the centre of the investigations with companies and individuals implicated in the conspiracy. By piecing together fragments of emails and other documents, our experts mapped a web of contacts and uncovered evidence including a distribution agreement, a financial transaction and company incorporation details of the company at the centre of the scam.

By reconstructing documents and analysing hidden metadata in files, we identified evidence such as document authors and key dates of editing and modification. This evidence substantiated other intelligence gathered in the case and helped secure the convictions that were announced this week.

David Porter, head of security and risk at Detica, added: This is an excellent example of the power of digital forensics investigations. Its not often that we can talk publicly about the activities of Detica Forensics because the issues we deal with are so sensitive. Cases are often resolved even before they reach court because the digital evidence is so incriminating.

Andy Clark continued: This case demonstrates how digital forensics is becoming an integral part of many criminal investigations. As digital footprints become bigger, multi-dimensional and ubiquitous, and criminal activities become increasingly intertwined and networked, it is not a trivial matter for digital forensics investigators to keep pace with fraudsters and illegal transactions.

Major US Government client awards contract to DeticaDFI

2007-09-07T00:00:00+01:00

DeticaDFI - the consultancy providing analysis and specialist information systems to the US Government - today announces the signing of a contract to provide advanced analytics services to a major US Government client involved in counterterrorism activities.

The deal is the result of collaboration between a joint Detica and DeticaDFI team. DeticaDFI will deliver the new contract, which will enhance existing analytics services for the client by introducing new advanced tools and methods developed in the UK for DeticaDFI clients. The initial focus of the project will be to improve the client’s ability to provide more rapid and effective intelligence aimed at curbing terrorist threats.

Phase 1 of the project has already commenced and it is expected to develop into a significant long term engagement with the client.

DeticaDFI wins key position in world-wide US Defense Intelligence framework

2007-09-07T00:00:00+01:00

DeticaDFI - the consultancy providing analysis and specialist information systems to the US Government – has been selected by the US Department of Defense (Office of the Under Secretary for Intelligence) as a member of a consortium of eleven organizations led by Scitor Corp., to provide world-wide professional, technical, analytical and administrative services.

The consortium contract is a Blanket Purchase Agreement, under which Task Orders will be awarded to the consortium for up to $50 million in the first year, and in each of four subsequent years, bringing the potential total value to the consortium to $250 million over five years.

DeticaDFI’s Vice President for Defense, Dr. James Blackwell, who led the effort for Detica, said: “Scitor’s selection of DeticaDFI to be on their team is indicative of a growing recognition among the top tier of US consultancies of the value of Detica’s approach to information intelligence for the transformation of US capabilities”

DeticaDFI offered an integrated set of capabilities from across the Detica Group, including contributions from Detica Group’s Defense Practice and Detica NetReveal ®, as well as key US tools and projects.

Tasks will cover a broad range of services, including:

Organization and management assessment and analysis
Policy development, planning and integration
Process and productivity improvements
Congressional liaison assistance
Information systems policy assessment
Program and architecture support and planning
Continuity of operations support

Detica warns businesses of social networking website dangers

2007-08-01T00:00:00+01:00

Business and technology consultancy, Detica, is warning businesses to think carefully about their involvement with websites such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Myspace’, as the soaring popularity of online social networks is leaving businesses dangerously exposed to fraud. Detica warns that determined criminals are assembling the ‘jigsaw pieces’ of information strewn around the internet to penetrate corporate defences.

Detica issues this alert in response to the growing trend for individuals to disclose job titles, work email addresses and phone numbers in their profiles, or to join groups associated with their employer where commercially sensitive information and opinion may be exchanged. It is now possible to type a company’s name into a Facebook search engine and acquire an extensive list of employees and, in many cases, a full insight into their private and professional lives. As a result, data which would otherwise remain restricted and confidential can become widely available and vulnerable to criminals and fraudsters.

Detica’s Head of Security and Risk, David Porter explains: “In an age where information and identity is the new criminal currency, social networking sites such as Facebook are goldmines for fraudsters who embezzle data. Even the most innocuous information about a business — people and the departments they work for, day-to-day processes, jargon and codes — can be valuable stepping stones for persistent criminals who want to infiltrate corporate security by trickery and subterfuge”.

Detica, which provides information intelligence consultancy to some of the UK’s biggest public and private sector organisations, has learned of cases where fraudsters trawl social networking sites for disgruntled employees who complain about their employer online, so they can bribe or coerce them into giving out corporate information. The risks of identify theft and fraud are also increasing with the emergence of sinister “false friends” who set up fake accounts on sites like Facebook and request the friendship of strangers. Once these so-called “friends” gain access to an individual’s private profile, they strip personal information for the purposes of fraud or spamming.

Porter believes that most people are unaware how hard it is to remove information once it has been posted online. Facebook, for example, keeps a comprehensive history of the updates made to profiles, broadcasting this to all contacts on the site via a ‘newsfeed’. Pages from visited websites are frequently duplicated and stored on other people’s computers, making it almost impossible to “destroy the negatives”. Porter comments: ‘“While businesses are getting much better at protecting themselves from online fraud in the traditional sense, they need to counter this new threat to security. The bottom line is, you can’t shred information in cyberspace”.

He continues, “We aren’t saying that individuals and businesses should stop engaging with social networking sites, but they must be extremely cautious, update their security policies and use the privacy controls available. Many people reveal things about themselves and their jobs to the entire world that they would not dream of sharing with a stranger in the pub. Remember – your virtual life has real-life implications too.”

Detica rides the Alpine Peaks for Marie Curie Cancer Care

2007-07-13T00:00:00+01:00

Four consultants from Detica, the business and technology consultancy, recently completed a 1000km bike ride in aid of the Marie Curie Cancer Care charity. The trip, from Geneva in Switzerland, across the Alps to Rome in Italy, took the team six days — cycling over 150km per day — to complete the journey.

A total of £2,465 was raised by Nick Branson, Chris Priest, Scott Coey and Simon Lyon — from Detica’s Global Financial Services team — for Marie Curie, which is the company’s nominated charity for 2007.

The toughest part of the ride saw the cyclists climb 9,000 feet up through Val d’Isere to the Col de l’Iseran, and over the border to Italy via the Col du Mont Cenis. “At one point, we were trudging through snow in the Alps, and having to dodge snow machines clearing the road,” said Nick Branson, team leader of the journey.

After leaving Turin, the team moved through Piemonte to the Italian coast at Genova Liguria and into Tuscany, across the Pisa Coastal Tuscan plains and into the ancient town of Orbetello, before the final cruise through Lazio and into Rome.

Nick Branson said of the journey: “I’m not sure what beer they served in Rome, but it tasted so good when we got there!”

Detica takes on the financial markets abuse challenge

2007-06-18T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, has been chosen by the FSA to help combat the growing problems of market abuse and insider trading. The FSA will exploit Detica’s expertise in information intelligence as the authority enhances its capability to detect and pursue market abuse by upgrading its Sabre markets monitoring system.

Market surveillance has been made more demanding by the rise of algorithmic trading, complex derivative products and cross-border trading. Regulators believe they should shift their attention from individual to institutionalised wrongdoing, a fact supported by research which shows nearly 50% of market abuse is perpetrated by corporate insiders.

Trapping institutional traders who are insider dealing is increasingly difficult as their activities are hidden in huge volumes of daily investment transactions. In developing SABRE II, Detica will be taking on the formidable challenge of analysing, in real-time, trading across a diverse range of financial instruments and markets.

In addition to generating alerts based on known models of suspicious behaviour, SABRE II will also enable investigators to discover longer-term illegal trading patterns buried in the data. This will be underpinned by technology which provides an advanced forensic analysis facility. As Simon Asplen-Taylor Head of Market and Regulatory Services in Detica, concludes: “At the end of the day this is all about intelligence. Intelligence in the sense of gaining a better picture of both individual and institutionalised market abuse, and intelligence in terms of taking a more enlightened approach to cracking this problem.”

The FSA has also selected Detica to help them reach the MIFID deadline of 1st November 2007 for exchanging relevant transaction reports with its European counterparts. By the very nature of its design, SABRE II will support the principle of continuous improvement, helping the FSA to carry out its statutory role more effectively, in what is a rapidly changing business environment and regulatory landscape.

“What strikes you most about this is the sheer scale and complexity of the project, combined with an absolute go-live date of 1st November for the MiFID element of the project”, comments Simon Asplen-Taylor. “The FSA has clearly invested a huge amount of trust in us.”

Detica given key position in new Catalist framework

2007-06-05T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy, today announced it has been selected by OGCbuying.solutions, the Government's leading procurement services organisation for the UK, along with nine other leading consultancies, to provide a broad remit of Multi-Disciplinary Consultancy services for public sector customers under the new Catalist framework.

The addition of multi-disciplinary consultancy services to the Catalist framework has coincided with a report from the National Audit Office revealing that central government spent in excess of £1.8 billion on consultancy in 2005-06. This has been carried forward into the Transforming Procurement initiative that calls for greater centralisation of buying and reuse of experiences, and lessons learned, between projects.

A number of factors were taken into consideration during the evaluation and selection process, including Detica's experience in delivering transformational projects requiring significant organisational and process change. Another key consideration was Deticas track record in providing high quality, impartial and professional advice to support clients needing to identify, de-risk, procure and implement solutions.

Commenting on this, Neil Medley, Director of UK Government at Detica, said:"We are delighted to win this vote of confidence in our capability and capacity to provide the deep client-side advice government needs to deliver true transformation - both in terms of the procurement process and the organisational impact of new projects. Detica's history of repeatable delivery and continuity in major programmes makes the company an immediate choice for many of our customers."

Detica launches digital forensics division to help businesses combat the'digital incident'

2007-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

With online access and the use of personal electronic devices hitting record levels and showing little sign of slowing, the digital economy is reaching a tipping point when it comes to e-crime according to Detica, the Information Intelligence specialists.

Because the vast majority of data in the workplace is now generated and stored electronically, many companies now consider their data as critical to the ongoing success of their business. However, it is Deticas belief that many companies are still not ready for a serious digital incident such as the loss, theft or corruption of data, often by insiders working in collusion with criminal gangs. In scrambling to cope with this new breed of high-tech disruption, companies may inadvertently do more harm than good. This ranges from contaminating the evidence and wasting valuable resources to making hasty decisions that disrupt company operations and degrade customer service.

To respond to the continuing evolution of the high-tech threat, Detica Group plc has launched a new digital forensics division, Detica Forensics, to enhance its Information Intelligence services for commercial and government organisations. Detica Forensics builds on the recent acquisition of Inforenz Limited, a company that has developed an enviable reputation through its work for commerce, law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies.

Data reaches into every aspect of an organisation, from brand and reputation, to regulation and compliance. Organisations need to be proactive in protecting their critical data resources and dealing efficiently with a digital incident should one occur, explains Andy Clark, Head of Detica Forensics. In the modern economy, digital forensics is a critical tool in protecting organisations from the considerable array of digital risks they face. The investigative capabilities of Detica Forensics significantly enhance Deticas Information Intelligence services and, in particular, complements the fraud detection solution. Clients will be able to enhance their existing preventative and detective countermeasures with a forensic investigation capability that follows the complete evidential chain from keyboard to courtroom.

Detica Forensics investigates unusual, unauthorised and illegal computer activity to help to combat fraud and reveal hidden information for commercial, regulatory and law enforcement agencies. Services include preliminary and full investigations, Digital Incident Readiness Reviews, cryptography consultancy, specialist data recovery, forensics training and access to accredited expert witnesses.

Clark concludes: Detica Forensics will appeal to any organisation that understands the value of its data and information assets. Security can never be totally guaranteed and it is therefore essential to have ways to investigate information leakage, to monitor data traffic and to uncover concealed data. Financial, legal and telecommunications companies will be especially interested in our services, but we also expect considerable interest from the rapidly growing number of organisations needing to secure high value intellectual property.

For more information, see

Detica to build new market abuse intelligence system for the Financial Services Authority

2006-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Detica Group plc (“Detica” or “the Group”), the business and technology consulting firm, today announces that it has signed a letter of intent with the Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) to deliver a new intelligence solution designed to assist the FSA in the exercise of its supervisory and regulatory powers under the new Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). The new system will analyse trading in a diverse range of financial instruments and provide the FSA with intelligence on unusual and potentially unlawful activity such as market abuse and insider trading. The Group has already begun work with the FSA and, if the FSA exercises its option to continue, the final contract is expected to be valued at approximately £17 million over a seven year period with the majority of the revenue recognised over the first three financial years.

The opportunity, won after a thorough and competitive tendering process, plays to Detica’s core strengths in “information intelligence” and its significant experience in the Capital Markets sector that has been developed both organically and through the acquisitions of Evolution Consulting Group and m.a.partners over the past 12 months.

The new solution to be developed by Detica will analyse patterns of trading in real-time. In addition, Detica will be delivering an off-line, forensic analysis solution to detect hidden and potentially illegal patterns of trading that develop over extended time periods using its own Detica NetReveal® technology, a unique intelligence tool developed in-house by the Group’s Technology Innovation Group. Detica NetReveal® was also implemented recently by the UK’s new Insurance Fraud Bureau to detect organised insurance claims fraud.

Commenting on this contract win Dr Tom Black, CEO of Detica, said today:

“This is a significant opportunity for Detica and is indicative of the way we can combine our expertise in information intelligence with strong capital markets experience and unique intellectual property in the form of Detica NetReveal®.

The UK, and more specifically London, has built its reputation as a global financial centre based on the integrity of its markets and we are delighted to be supporting the FSA in its vital role as the regulator of these markets.”

Criminal gangs actively targeting mobile operators as telecoms fraud nears £1bn in the UK

2006-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy that specialises in information intelligence, has warned that organised criminal gangs are targeting mobile operators as never before.

Alistair Lovegrove, telecoms specialist at Detica, explains: “Given that the penalties for fraud are typically less severe than for burglary or robbery of similar sums, combined with the difficulties of getting a successful prosecution, defrauding operators is a relatively low risk and lucrative activity. It is no wonder that some gangs now see it as more profitable than drug smuggling.”

In March 2006 the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA) estimated that annual global fraud losses in the telecoms sector were now between $54 billion and $60 billion, an increase of 52 per cent from 2003. In the UK, the Telecom UK Fraud Forum (TUFF) estimates the total annual loss to be in the region of £866 million. The CFCA also estimated that global annual losses to fraud account for 5 per cent of the total telecom sector revenue with mobile operators seen as more vulnerable than fixed line.

“The impact of fraud is far reaching and can affect all parts of a mobile operator’s business. Not only is there obvious financial impact but there can also be serious damage to the operator’s brand, customer relationships and shareholder confidence,” adds Lovegrove.

A common scam for fraudsters is to direct calls to their own premium rate services by tricking mobile users to call their premium rate number. The mobile operator ends up paying a commission to the premium rate service owner but is not able to recover the costs. Others involve false identities and are part of the wider trend of identity theft.

Lovegrove continues: “Nearly half of all UK fraud prosecutions in the UK in 2005 were of professional criminals, so it is clear that mobile fraud is not simply an opportunistic, amateur activity. Sophisticated gangs aim for high volume, low impact fraud and prefer to operate at a scale, using multiple identities, that can successfully run below the operators’ detection thresholds. Viewed in isolation, these accounts looks normal, but combined they represent a significant revenue loss.”

Lovegrove concludes: “Traditional fraud detection systems are struggling with these new approaches and criminal gangs are getting more adept at beating the rules and profiles they have in place. Mobile operators need to take a new, more sophisticated, approach to fraud detection that can flag potential new fraudsters much earlier and prevent significant losses.”

Detica advocates social network analysis to stem the tide of large-scale organised fraud in the telecoms sector

2006-10-26T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy that specialises in Information Intelligence, is urging the UK’s leading mobile operators to develop more sophisticated ways of identifying the criminal networks that are costing the UK telecoms sector close to £1bn* a year in fraudulent activity.

Alistair Lovegrove, telecoms specialist at Detica, explains: “New techniques are needed that can readily identify networks of fraudsters operating below the threshold of current systems. If operators are to address the significant losses that they are experiencing due to organised subscription fraud, they need to introduce techniques such as social network analysis that will enable them to flag potential new fraudsters much earlier.”

Social network analysis is the mapping and measurement of relationships between people, groups and organisations. Its techniques can be used to map the normally invisible relationships between people to identify and understand networks of collaborating individuals or organisations across disparate and unlinked sources of data. By pooling data from multiple sources about people and their transactions, it is possible to link groups of people into networks of activity. Social network analysis therefore has the potential to provide investigators with a new way of quickly and reliably identifying fraudulent activity.

Lovegrove continues: “Most frauds using false identities have an associated physical footprint, such as a name, delivery address, or bank account which leaves a trail that social network analysis can identify and subsequently analyse. For instance, when signing up for a new mobile phone contract, the fraudster needs to supply names, home addresses and bank account details to pass the standard credit checks. Since a valid bank account is needed, fraudsters need to set up and manage a portfolio of apparently legitimate accounts to support their activities. The sheer scale of such frauds makes managing an individual account for each false identity uneconomical, leading gangs to share half a dozen accounts between their false identities.”

Lovegrove explains: “Social network analysis would identify subscriptions using the same bank accounts and would flag these networks as suspicious. If customers in the network are already associated with bad debt or are known fraudsters then investigators will know to watch any new account joining the network carefully.”

Social network analysis can supplement the tools that investigators currently use to investigate and connect networks of fraudsters. By identifying these connections, it allows entire fraud rings, as opposed to individual fraudsters, to be detected and shut down.

Lovegrove concludes: “Fraudulent activity is costing UK telecoms companies close to £1bn* per year and has a major impact on service levels and customer confidence. Mobile operators in particular need to heed these warnings and develop more sophisticated ways of identifying fraudulent activity to limit their losses.”

Consumers still the weakest link as fear of online crime escalates

2006-10-19T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the business and technology consultancy that specialises in Information Intelligence, has today announced that initiatives promoting the dangers of ID fraud are bound to fail until people protect their online identity and personal data the same way they would protect their handbag or wallet when walking down the street. The public have to realise that details they enter on web sites like MySpace are fair game for criminals.

David Porter, Senior Fraud Expert at Detica, says: “There is only so much that experts and computer systems can do as the final responsibility rests with the consumer. Attacks succeed largely because of human fallibility ranging from distraction, fear and stupidity through to gullibility and sheer greed.

“Also, the situation is not helped by the fact that up to 24%* of adults in the UK are functionally illiterate which makes them easy prey for criminals. Consumers have their part to play and need to sharpen up their act and realise that their personal data is as valuable as their physical possessions. They also need to check their monthly statements as well as their credit records.”

According to Porter, consumers are undeniably afraid of online identify theft yet still do not take the right steps to prevent themselves from becoming a target. People have yet to realise personal data is not just at risk in the waste bin: information also needs to be protected online.

Cybercrime is on the rise because it is so easy for fraudsters to snatch personal data, assume an identity and apply for goods and services at the other end of a phone line without footing the bill. As Porter puts it, “On the internet, you can literally be anyone”.

*Figure taken from Basic Skills Agency (BSA), www.basic-skills.co.uk.

Detica chosen to keep Britain on time

2006-10-11T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the information intelligence consultancy, has been chosen to generate the critical time code signal that will be used by VT Communications to transmit the national time and frequency standard for the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). Detica will also provide VT Communications with the technology to remotely manage the transmission of the signal over an IP network.

From 2007 VT Communications will transmit the radio signal - known as the MSF transmission - moving the site from Rugby to Anthorn on the west coast of Cumbria. The migration to VT Communications’ technology will start at the beginning of next year with the final transfer scheduled for the end of March 2007.

Maintaining accurate time is key to keeping the world working across many mission critical industries. The MSF time signal transmission is accurate to within one millisecond of Universal Time and it supports business and public services spanning the emergency services, transport networks and financial systems.

Detica’s technology will be used for the time code generation components that are integral to the system and critical to the service’s success. The new equipment provided by Detica offers significant improvements over the current equipment used at Rugby, allowing more precise control of the signal and cutting the amount of maintenance required by allowing the service to be automatically monitored and controlled over an IP network.

Doug Umbers, Managing Director of VT Communications, said: “We chose to work with Detica on this project due to the company’s track record in delivering mission critical IT systems to key industries which is obviously very important in ensuring that we can successfully deliver the transmission service to NPL. I’m looking forward to a close ongoing relationship with Detica to ensure the nation runs on time.”

Martin Sutherland, Government Director at Detica, said: “It’s great for Detica to be involved in a project which keeps the UK running on time; we are excited that we are going to become part of people’s everyday lives helping areas like the emergency services and public transport networks. This announcement with VT Communications demonstrates the unique nature of our technology; it also builds on our previously successful partnership with the company.”

Detica identifies global mega trends expected to drive profound change in the world of finance

2006-09-06T00:00:00+01:00

Bürgenstock, 6 September 2006 – Detica, the business and technology consulting firm, is today outlining six mega trends that are already beginning to affect the mainstream of financial market thinking and which are expected to have considerable ramifications for global financial markets in the future.

Detica – who recently acquired m.a.partners and Evolution to become a leader in financial markets consulting – will present these mega trends at the 27th annual Bürgenstock conference in Switzerland. The conference is the international forum for derivatives markets – or ‘the Davos of derivatives.’

The white paper is titled: ‘How the new DNA of markets is driving comprehensive change throughout the world of finance’ and has been co-written by Steve Mitchell, Director, Financial Services at Detica and Patrick L. Young, author of ‘Capital Market Revolution’.

The nature of broking is changing. The retail investor market has shifted from a very simple ’them and us’ mentality between wholesale professionals and retail investors. This is making the market place more complex and more granular as a vast array of solutions can be micro traded (as core products or overlays), tailored to the needs of specific clients of a new breed of “private brokers”.

The volume of data is exploding. Algorithmic micro trades mean exchange volumes are soaring, not just in trading, but in quote volumes too. This volume will be further added to by recent regulations (e.g. MiFID, RegNMS) and organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to manage this data overload.

Just as peer-to-peer activity is having a profound effect on the music industry so too it is encroaching upon conventional bank saving and lending. The traditional bank is under threat as the balance of power in lending is shifting.

The whole concept of asset classes has been fundamentally changed by the internet’s capacity for providing price transparency. This means that banks need to rethink how they lend and what collateral they lend it against to minimise the influence of new niche providers of finance arising in all segments of the market.

The derivatives and insurance industries are converging with potentially fundamental implications on the insurance market.

Cybercrime presents a completely new opportunity for organised criminal gangs. Combating the problem is dependent on the effective sharing of data; something that financial institutions have traditionally been reluctant to do with their competitors. In short, so long as financial institutions and regulators fail to co-operate on the local, regional and international level then cyber crime will remain a blight on financial markets.

Bonus Issue Statement

2006-07-20T00:00:00+01:00

Please click here to view a pdf of the press release.

Detica joins the Catalist community

2006-06-05T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the information intelligence consultancy, has been selected by OGCbuying.solutions, to provide ICT Consultancy services to public sector customers under the new Catalist framework – the Catalist brand incorporates older framework agreements including GCat and S-Cat until they expire and a series of new framework agreements including ICT Consultancy, which have been developed to offer customers a broad range of goods and services aligned to their particular needs.

A number of factors were taken into consideration during the evaluation process including Detica’s track record in providing consultancy services to key customers in HMRC, DTI, the Home Office and the MOD.

Commenting on this, Martin Sutherland, Director of Government at Detica said: “This is the first time Detica has been listed in its own right on an OGCbuying.solutions framework and we are delighted to be one of the suppliers who have been accredited. E-business continues to be a growth area and we look forward to working with OGCbuying.solutions to promote Catalist as an efficient contracting route across Government.”

Key contract win for Detica's new US business

2006-05-18T00:00:00+01:00

Detica Group plc ("Detica" or the Group), the specialist IT consultancy, today announces that its US subsidiary, Detica Inc, has been awarded a key role in a substantial process improvement project for a US Government client. Part of a consortium led by BearingPoint and including Honeywell, Deticas role involves the application of Six Sigma techniques for the measurement and improvement of core business processes in the clients operations. Detica is also providing programme management services.

The initial contract duration is six months with a value for Detica Inc of approximately $500,000. Thereafter, the contract provides the client with options to extend annually for up to a further four years at a similar rate of spend. The work is being undertaken exclusively by the Groups US team which now numbers 17 and continues to grow steadily.

Tom Black, Detica Groups CEO said, We are delighted to have won this project which adds to the increasing momentum of our US business and strengthens significantly our relationship with a major US Government client. This is a high-value consulting engagement which emphasises the underlying quality of people and client relationships that Detica Inc is developing.

Detica develops major vehicle intelligence service

2006-04-20T00:00:00+01:00

Specialist IT Consultancy, Detica has developed the purpose-built market leading vehicle provenance and mileage checking service being launched by Trader Data Systems (TDS) (part of Trader Media Group, the owners of Autotrader magazine), in a multi-million pound contract.

Vehicle provenance is a major market in the UK which involves assessing the integrity of a vehicle prior to purchase. Factors for consideration include: looking at whether a car has been stolen; if finance is owed on it; if it has ever been involved in a major accident; checking previous driver details; verifying the (chassis) vehicle identification number (VIN) against registration records, and assessing if the mileage may have been ‘clocked’.

The service goes live to dealers in April and to the public in the summer. It was developed in just nine months by Detica and runs on Ab Initio software, which draws over forty sources of data into an Oracle operational database. Suppliers of the data include the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency), ABI (Association of British Insurers), and the PNC (Police National Computer) as well as various vehicle valuation services and third party insurers and finance providers. This enables TDS to provide a real-time picture of all the key data needed by a car dealer or private individual to decide on the wisdom of making a vehicle purchase.

Car dealers and later the general public will be able to access the service 24 hours a day online and also via the telephone. Both TDS employees and end users will use the web-based Java interface custom-built by Detica.

Neil Hodson, Managing Director of Trader Data Systems comments: "I am confident that we will differentiate ourselves from others in the market by providing the most comprehensive, assessable and accurate vehicle provenance checking service available. We will also be able to offer our customers significant cost savings and new time saving features when the facility launches. With these new services we are highly-optimistic that we will gain significant market share quickly upon launch and become a major player in the market within the next year".

Hodson also outlines Detica’s involvement in the project: “Detica has been an invaluable partner for us as we have built our business from scratch. They helped us with every aspect of the solution, both commercially and technically and brought a real depth of expertise in data management and application development. We were 100% reliant on them to build the systems that underpin our business - they didn't let us down. Together we have achieved a huge amount in only nine months.”

Ken Henderson, Senior Manager at Detica concludes: “Working with TDS has been both exciting and rewarding. It is not every day that we get the opportunity to work alongside a client to build a solution from the ground up. We have been able to engineer a solution for TDS using state-of-the-art technology to bring vehicle provenance checking into the 21st century and significantly increase the quality of vehicle data available on the market today.”

Detica unveils NetReveal: A revolution in fraud detection

2006-03-30T00:00:00+01:00

Detica, the UK’s number one information intelligence specialist, has announced the launch of Detica NetReveal®, the most advanced fraud detection system in the world today. Detica NetReveal® takes a revolutionary approach to fraud detection by spotting fraudulent activity in social networks, rather than individual transactions. The technology is already being successfully applied to identify claims fraud in the insurance industry, as well as mobile phone fraud in the telecoms market and ‘sleeper fraud’ in retail banking. It is also being used in government to address fraud and security issues.

The Detica NetReveal® solution contrasts with traditional approaches to fraud detection, which are limited by their reliance on using rigid sets of rules to detect suspicious transactions at an individual level. Increasingly, fraudsters are hiding their activities by using multiple, disguised identities to perpetrate small and seemingly innocuous frauds, distributed across organisations on a massive scale. To combat this, Detica NetReveal® uses a series of new and advanced data analysis techniques to uncover the hidden relationships within social networks of people and data. The system allows investigators to view and interrogate suspicious networks of transactions, whilst it also prioritises the most suspicious networks.

In a ground-breaking project, the insurance industry recently pooled the data sources from UK insurers and formed the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB). Established to detect and deter serious and organised claims fraud across the UK, the underlying technology behind the IFB is Detica NetReveal®.

Imam Hoque, Director of Detica’s Technology Innovation Group, commented, “The days are numbered for clever fraudsters that rely on hiding their activities below the radar screen of traditional anti-fraud systems. Detica NetReveal® is already proving to be a powerful system for discovering millions of pounds worth of previously hidden criminal activity. We believe that Detica NetReveal® offers the potential to uncover fraud in its billions, across a range of different industries.”

Detica announces contract wins in defence

2006-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Detica today announced that it has won two significant contracts in the defence market. The first of these, worth approximately £2M, involves the development of new data mining techniques supporting the MoD's Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance capabilities and is contracted from the MoD's Research Acquisition Organisation.

The work will exploit Detica's industry leading data mining and analytics capabilities to develop a capability demonstrator - a tool to support analysts in the searching of large heterogeneous databases. It is planned as a 2-year programme and will be used to clarify user requirements, and systems performance and functionality parameters in support of possible future procurement. Key features include developing an extensible grammar for the construction of queries, carrying out queries on English and non-English data sets and working with a combination of proprietary and open source data formats.

The second contract is for the upgrade of the acoustic data processing component of the RAF's ISTAR (Intelligence Surveillance Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) Mission Support System facility in support of the RAF’s role in Maritime Reconnaissance. It is the latest in a series of contract wins in the area of acoustic data intelligence over the past 2 years. The contract has a value of £1.1 million and will be delivered in collaboration with Thales UK.

Martin Sutherland, Director of Detica's Government Business said, "We are delighted to have won these two contracts which between them demonstrate the relevance of Detica's information intelligence proposition to solving problems across the UK defence market".

Chip and pin is here but the public is still vulnerable to card fraud, argues Detica

2006-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

From Valentine’s Day a signature at the till is unlikely to be enough to authenticate a transaction. Specialist IT consultancy Detica argues that whilst this may make consumers feel safer, the reality is that the card fraud threat is still very much alive and consumers need to remain on guard – particularly as online and cardholder not present (CNP) fraud continue to rocket.

David Porter, Head of Security and Risk at Detica explains: “Fraud is like a balloon — you squeeze it in one place and it bulges in another. That’s why according to APACS, Internet, phone and mail order (CNP) fraud rose by 29% last year and will likely do so by more in 2006. Many of these cases will be down to customers playing fast and loose with their card details — not destroying receipts with their card number on, giving their details to disreputable organisations and leaving their card behind a bar being just a few examples of bad practice.”

Porter continues: “It never hurts to reiterate basic common sense advice. First, people should never let cards go out of their sight. So if you’re in a restaurant, go with the waiter to pay at the terminal. Never write down a PIN, don’t share the same PIN between different cards and don’t choose easy-to-remember digits such as your date of birth. Also, when keying in the PIN at the till, make sure you shield the number you are typing in from those behind you. When shopping online and where possible, use Verified by Visa or MasterCard SecureCode, both of which make transactions more secure.”

Porter concludes: “It’s not all doom and gloom — card fraud losses were actually down 13% last year due in part to chip and PIN. However, if this downward trend is to continue, the public needs to be more savvy about taking electronic fraud more seriously and using new security technology properly, and at the same time, technology companies need to evolve their security countermeasures to match the new directions taken by the fraudsters.”

Detica helps reduce IT spend at MoD

2006-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Detica, the specialist IT consultancy, has helped the Ministry of Defence (MoD) identify savings in excess of £10 million by reducing the number of software applications used across the organisation by over 150.

The application rationalisation project, a Treasury funded component of the Defence Information Exploitation (IX) programme, runs alongside the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) programme, which aims to deliver a consolidated IT infrastructure across the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. To move towards the unified structure, the MoD identified over 1,000 applications that it would need to migrate to the new integrated infrastructure.

Detica, which has a 30-year long history of working with the MoD, was brought in to provide technical advice and assist in identifying possible savings that could be made as part of the migration.

“We are always looking for ways to improve our operations and reduce expenditure,” says Ian Henderson, application rationalisation project manager at the MoD. “Each application that we move to the new network incurs costs for testing, installation, integration and support and maintenance, and it seemed logical to eliminate any programs that were not being used to their full potential. We have a good working relationship with Detica and we felt that the company would be able to apply its specialist knowledge to the task of examining our application needs, to come up with the most efficient solution for our users.”

Bill Young, principal consultant at Detica, explains how Detica went about making its recommendations: “The MoD had put together a portfolio listing the applications that its employees use. We took this as a starting point to identify subject matter groups and then held workshops with key users from each group to find out which programs they use and what they use them for. Our job was not to prescribe which applications to get rid of, but rather to work with the actual end users to put forward a recommendation of the software tools that could best meet their needs.”

So far, Detica has identified over 150 applications that can be removed from the network including library management systems and graphics packages. The MoD was using over 30 different applications to run libraries across the world and the project has narrowed this down to seven, whilst also cutting down graphics software from 25 to five programs.

As the project is ongoing, Detica hopes to save even more costs for the MoD and further improve operational efficiency by identifying additional programs that could be eliminated.