"The last thing an online business wants is police to take away their hardware because of a cyber criminal in another country," he said.

Using the example of the recent , Hay said the resources of hackers and other cyber criminals are much greater than the resources police officers have available to them.

"Policing grew the development of technological tools like DNA testing," he said.

"But the important distinction to make is that policing was [essential to] the development of these tools ... but with cybercrime, the tables have turned."

Hay suggested that the speed of cyber criminals combined with the view that cyber security is purely a technical problem was holding back the industry.