Fighting Cybercrime
Fighting cybercrime is the new frontier for today’s criminal protection services. Lawmakers, police officers and special organizations are all working to reduce cybercrime and protect the public, but it’s a growing field with not enough manpower to provide the protection that the public needs.
What does cybercrime entail?
Cybercrime is a broad term that encompasses a range of criminal activity perpetuated with the aid of computer networks. Cybercrime has a broad range of effects on individuals and companies, including:
- Loss of money;
- Loss of data;
- Loss of reputation;
- Loss of freedom;
- Theft of critical data;
- Loss of credentials;
- Paralysis of production tools.
Most people think of cybercrime as the phishing scams you get via email, and malware implanted on your computer to steal personal data. Unfortunately, cybercrime only starts there – it gets much darker with serious criminal activity, including mob connections, and concentrated efforts to target a business or individual. Cybercrime is a critical danger today and the criminal battlefield of the future, and tools for fighting cybercrime lag behind the criminals themselves.
Consumer protection is only one aspect of cybercrime, and it’s potentially the least serious aspect. Child pornography is a serious cybercrime, and without the educated officers to investigate and prosecute cybercrime, this problem can go unchecked. The mob is also getting involved in cybercrime, including complex fraud, extortion, and targeting financial organizations to launder and steal money.
Fighting cybercrime with your local police office
The place to start fighting cybercrime is with your very own local police office. Protecting the general public from cybercrime is a task that starts within local police jurisdiction. Local police departments follow up on reports of child pornography, identity theft, or other online crime. Specially-trained police officers and investigators can follow leads and track down information about the cybercrime. However, not all local police departments can afford these specially-trained police officers, so they may need to outsource their cybercrime fighting to consultants or other jurisdictions.
IC3: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center
The FBI is so committed to fighting serious cybercrime that it has partnered with the National White Collar Crime Center to create the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3. The IC3 takes complaints directly from persons who have been victims of cybercrime, as well as third parties. The IC3 evaluates online complaints and forwards them to the appropriate authority, be it a state agency, a federal agency, or local law enforcement. The IC3 doesn’t actually conduct investigations, but it makes sure that complaints of cybercrime make it to the appropriate authority and jurisdiction.
Winning combination for fighting cybercrime: computer forensics and criminal justice
If you want to pursue a career in fighting cybercrime, an educational background in computer forensics can provide you with the training you need. A computer forensics education gives you the tools you need to track down leads and gather and analyze data. This is vital to investigating cybercrimes, as the clues and evidence in cybercrime cases is markedly different from the evidence and processes involved in physical crimes.
To become a law enforcement professional who specializes in fighting cybercrime, you’ll want to combine your computer forensics education with a criminal justice degree. A strong understanding of criminal justice gives you a sense of how the law works and what evidence you need to prosecute a crime. Combine this with the skills you learn in a computer forensics education, and you have the ability to gather the evidence you need to prosecute a crime. A computer forensics education combined with a criminal justice degree is the winning combination for effectively fighting cybercrime.
