Too little, too late

TalkTalk’s response to hackers

THE PHRASE “closing the stable door after the horse has bolted” should not be lost on TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding who has called in defence giant BAE Systems to help investigate the hacking scandal now engulfing her firm – she is steeped in horse racing and owned the 1998 Gold Cup winner Cool Dawn.

If call centre staff at the communications company had taken the complaints more seriously rather than dismissing them out of hand, Baroness Harding of Winscombe – she was made a full-time Tory peer in September last year – would not be in such a desperate fight to salvage not only her reputation but that of TalkTalk. The firm is paying a very heavy price for its complacency, even though Baroness Harding admitted that cyber security is “the crime of our era” as one of Britain’s top detectives spoke at a conference in Leeds about the need for greater collaboration between the police and academia.

The remarks of Sir Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, could not be more timely. Not only do they focus attention on the need to learn lessons from the TalkTalk episode, and the worry that this has caused, but it also focuses the attention of those forces who have to decide whether they should invest in street patrols or computer experts who have the ability to trace online fraudsters. Like it or not, it is further evidence of the need for the police to move with the times.