Government Technology - December 2008 - (Page DC30)

More needs to be done to keep pace with criminals who increasingly use computers to commit crimes. ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/PALI RAO BY ULF WOLF ernment 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. Yet cyber-crime is an offense that most experts agree has just begun stirring — criminals are getting smarter and better equipped, which forecasts even gloomier days to come. The Cyber-Crime Challenge How do you prepare for computer crime? How do you face this challenge? The GAO cyber-crime report GAO07-075 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 BY ULF WOLF 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 Computers and the Internet have and expertise for law enforcement — made the criminal a better criminal, without the Crime 2.0 car and skilled and while the law, again, is catching drivers — the remaining points up, police don’t have nearly enough scarcely matter. resources and expertise to catch crooks to any meaningful extent. Law Enforcement Resources To investigate and prosecute cybercrime, law enforcement agencies need Cyber-Crime Stats According to the 2007 Internet skilled investigators, up-to-date comCrime Complaint Center (IC3) report, puter forensic examiners and prosecutors 206,884 complaints were ﬁ led online with cyber-crime familiarity. According to federal and state law for an estimated $239 million loss. However, keep in mind that experts enforcement ofﬁcials, the pool of qual(for once) agree that only 1 in 7 cyber- iﬁed candidates is limited because crimes are reported to the authorities those investigating or examining or to sites such as IC3. The accurate cyber-crime must be highly trained cyber-crime ﬁgures, then, are roughly specialists, requiring detective and technical skills, including knowledge seven times higher. Taking into account the broader of various IT hardware and software, impact as reported by the U.S. Gov- and forensic tools. Crime 2.0 W hen Henry Ford brought affordable automobiles to the average U.S. citizen in 1908, he also improved the fortunes of criminals by ushering in Crime 1.0 — technologyassisted crime. 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 — hightechnology-assisted crime. The computer is the 21st-century equivalent of last century’s car. 30 DIGITAL COMMUNITIES DECEMBER 08 Gearing Up for

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - December 2008

Government Technology - December 2008 Contents Point of View Four Questions for... On the Scene Big Picture Year in Review Who Controls Your Network? Paper Makes a Comeback Halting Meth Abuse Spectrum Up Close signal:noise Digital Communities Contents Becoming a Digital Community Rethinking 700 MHz Smart Grids: Powering the Future Gearing Up for Crime 2.0 Software Predicts Crime Local Portals on the Red Carpet More Than Just a Pretty Face

Government Technology - December 2008

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