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Steven Mitchell (sdm259)
Professor Begolly
CMPSC 101
March 27, 2008
Cyber Crime and Investigation
As technology progresses, not only in complexity, but also in its exponential growth and
widespread usage, so have the crime and the pursuant investigations seen ongoing growth,
complexity, and changes in their application. These continuous and seemingly unrelenting
evolutions have required law enforcement to remain constantly vigilant, and be prepared to
change their focus and tactics in response to whatever new and revolutionary technological
applications criminal devise.
Supervisory Special Agent William P. Shore from the Computer Crimes Squad assigned
to the Pittsburgh office of the FBI shared some valuable insights and statistics from the
perspective of law enforcement with the student body on the Penn State Shenango Campus.
These statistics are helpful in revealing the trends that society is experiencing through the advent
of digital information technology and its associated fields of communication, commerce, systems
control, and data storage. Interestingly, although not unexpectedly, these figures indicate that the
U.S. is the point of origin for 25% of all cyber attacks worldwide. They also reveal that credit
cards are the preeminent target of choice with American banks being afflicted in 85% of all
cases. Further, 4% of all cyber-crime is directed toward Fortune 100 companies and 30% of all
personal data breaches occur at U.S. educational institutions. The end result is an FTC estimate
of over $53 billion in losses and 10 million cases of identity theft annually in the U.S.A.
One very troubling trend is the increase of attacks targeting the home user; rising from
86% to 95% in just three years, in the forms of malicious code for profit, software vulnerability
exploitation, phishing/spam, and bot infestations. Many of these cyber attacks are becoming
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increasingly sophisticated and difficult to track as criminals implement methods like “Bot-
Herder” servers for command and control and “Fast-Flux”, an IP address altering technology to
avoid detection. Reaching above and beyond economic and personal concerns are threats to
national security as terrorists, and foreign powers, look toward such issues as infrastructure
intrusion, supply chain disruption, propaganda distribution, and fund-raising, while enjoying the
benefits of secure encrypted communications.
All of these affairs fall under the umbrella of the FBI, as in most instances local and state
law enforcement agencies do not have the jurisdictional authority or the resources to effectively
confront this rapidly expanding field of social disorder. They have become the organization
responsible for tracking down the spammers, designers, exploiters, cashiers, and droppers that
are currently inflicting these damages on persons, companies, and even nations as they pursue
personal wealth or sociological ideals in conflict with established societal values.
The FBI has therefore established a list of suggested recommendations in the event you
are unfortunate enough to become a cyber-victim. They advise that the user employ logging,
both historical and useable, preserve the computer in an “as-penetrated” state, report the
occurrence immediately, and document all losses incurred, including those generated as post-
event expenses such as time spent correcting credit ratings or identity issues. The employment of
these measures can greatly aid law enforcement in the apprehension of those individuals
responsible for inflicting the damages as well as minimizing the cumulative losses experienced
by the victim, whether personal, corporate, institutional, or governmental.
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