Cyber-Crime: Law Enforcement Must Keep Pace With Tech-Savvy Criminals
Date: January 29, 2009Source: Govtech.com
Suddenly bank robbers and other undesirables were harder to catch, speeding away from the horse-mounted posse in their Model Ts.
It wasn't long, however, before the law caught on and equipped itself accordingly: police cars - and lots of them - which they learned to drive as well if not better than any crook.
Fast forward a century: Enter the computer and with it, Crime 2.0 - high technology- assisted crime.
The computer is the 21st-century equivalent of last century's car.
Computers and the Internet have made the criminal a better criminal, and while the law, again, is catching up, police don't have nearly enough resources and expertise to catch crooks to any meaningful extent.
Cyber-Crime Stats
According to the 2007 Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) report, 206,884 complaints were filed online for an estimated $239 million loss. However, keep in mind that experts (for once) agree that only 1 in 7 cyber-crimes are reported to the authorities or to sites such as IC3. The accurate cyber-crime figures, then, are roughly seven times higher.
Taking into account the broader impact as reported by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), various studies and expert opinions estimate the direct economic impact from cyber-crime to be billions of dollars annually. In fact, according to a 2005 FBI survey, the annual loss due to computer crime was estimated at $67 billion for U.S. organizations alone.
The Cyber-Crime Challenge
How do you prepare for computer crime? How do you face this challenge?
The GAO cyber-crime report GAO-07-075 identified four major challenges in combating this epidemic:
ensuring cyber-crime is reported;
ensuring adequate analytical and technical capabilities for law enforcement;
working in a borderless environment with laws of multiple jurisdictions; and
implementing information security practices and raising awareness.
Of these four challenges, the most urgent is ensuring adequate analytical and technical capabilities for law enforcement. The other three areas are being addressed, but even if their progress lagged, they could be remedied. But without technical resources and expertise for law enforcement - without the Crime 2.0 car and skilled drivers - the remaining points scarcely matter.
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