The Future of Digital Crimes and Digital Terrorism

Strayer University – CIS 170 – Dr. Neal Basta

3/6/2018

Digital crimes and digital terrorism are no longer fears for just country governments as these forms of criminal activities are now filtering down to average citizens. Federal agencies all the way down to local city agencies are working to combat these crimes.As more people are living a digital life the chances for digital crime or even digital terrorism are increasing. “The pervasive use of home computers has added another potential source of evidence to the over 54 million households with computers in the United States”.

The digital threat has grown to the point where leaders of the US federal agencies are worried about the entire US digital system. “It is difficult to state with confidence that our critical infrastructure—the backbone of our country’s economic prosperity, national security, and public health—will remain unscathed and always be available when needed”. Gordon Snow the Assistant Director of the Cyber Division of the FBI spoke to Senate subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism when he made that statement. That statement shows that the threat of digital terrorism is as real a threat as physical violence and could cause a more widespread issue than a physical attack. “Cyber-crime costs the global economy about $445 billion every year, with the damage to business from the theft of intellectual property exceeding the $160 billion loss to individuals from hacking”.

With all devices that are connected to the internet a vulnerability for criminals to get access to the public must stay vigilant with their digital life and usage. Social media is a way of life for most of the public and through these applications people are sharing personal information that can be used to hurt them. Identity theft is a major issue and concern for most as it is the most common form but there are other ways your social media presence can be used against you. If someone posts that they aren’t home as they are on vacation that tells a potential criminal that your home is not occupied and if the person has left enough clues the criminal can find that house and rob it.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is a particularly effective tool against digital crimes as they operate in multiple arenas such as law enforcement and intelligence gathering. There are many federal agencies that have dedicated cyber division to work to fight against the growing digital threat. “Through the FBI-led National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, we coordinate our efforts with 20 law enforcement and intelligence community (IC) entities, including the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Security Agency”. By working together and sharing information the detection and protection of our digital world can be more secure.

The scary thing is that governments are “indeed playing catch up and frankly falling far behind in our efforts to protect and secure the critical information infrastructure that runs the world”. Even with task forces working together there is still not full disclosure of findings and information as what one agency considers credible information another might not. This can cause different forms of action or no action at all. Jurisdictional issues arise as criminals have no boundaries while law enforcement agencies do.

A way to help combat the lack of information sharing or general consensus on information is to form a standard guideline for information sharing and have a presidential elected chief for an interagency task force. This leader can have key member from each federal agency in a cabinet to properly share and disseminate information while the final decision would be theirs to make with all of the provided information. This allows for all agencies to have input while not putting one in charge of others. With a shared force that’s only goal is digital protection it would lead to a more streamlined thought process and protection plans. Currently there are too many cooks in the kitchen deciding what is and isn’t relevant information to share with other law enforcement agencies.

To mitigate any deficiencies, the federal agencies might have in regards to battling the digital threat there should be interagency training. This would allow for the tasked members from each agency to better their skills and bring the skill level of the entire federal digital protection team to a higher level. Each agency has specialties and when shared to the other agencies it allows for a greater use of available tools. An example of this on a smaller scale is when Department of Homeland Security “provided more than 30 FBI agents and intelligence analysts with specialized training in these systems”.

Another way to help align the path that the federal agencies can take it to also get outside assistance. Using worldwide allies to give different perspectives and trainings can help familiarize the agencies with different threats and ideas on how to handle them. By combining forces to help combat the digital threat the different agencies can provide a more complete protection scheme and plan. With digital crimes growing how they are fought needs to grow. Digital crimes are battled in a much different manner than traditional physical crimes and training and outside ideas can only help foster better protection implementations. “To investigate and prosecute cyber-crime, law enforcement agencies need skilled investigators, up-to-date computer forensic examiners and prosecutors with cyber-crime familiarity”.

Future digital crime growth will continue as more of the public’s life is connected. We are to the point where refrigerators, washing machines, and cars are all connected online. This connectivity can be a great thing but it can also lead to more opportunities to have your data stolen or manipulated by digital criminals. The age of first exposure to online is getting younger and younger as there are more options and platforms available for all ages. Schools are now providing tablets and/or laptops to students as young as first grade in one to one initiatives.

Without proper training people are giving out so much information that they leave themselves extremely vulnerable to attack or identity theft. “The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which aggregates self-reported complaints of cyber-crime, reports that in 2010, identity theft schemes made up 9.8 percent of all cyber-crime”. With more devices and logins for people to remember they use the same password for all of their logins to help mitigate the remembering of different passwords. This allows for a digital criminal to get access to one account and then go from there with access to everything.

Identity theft can be a financially debilitating crime as the criminal can ruin your credit from another country and before you or bank even knows. “According to a 2011 publication released by Javelin Strategy and Research, the annual cost of identity theft is $37 billion”. This number is staggering and will not go down but will grow higher in the future. As more people get more connected they continue to open more vulnerabilities.

In conclusion the threat of digital crime and digital terrorism is very real and extremely scary. The federal agencies tasked with the countries protection have limitations are there are jurisdictional issues, lack of trainings, and information sharing deficiencies. As the technology continues to grow and become more ingrained in daily life the protection of the public grows and the law enforcement agencies need to play catch up and devise proper plans and methods to keep everyone protected. By working together the federal agencies can become a stronger force for protecting the United States from digital crimes and digital terrorism.

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