U.S. Secret Service Has 171 Cybercrimes Under Investigation

The U.S. Secret Service has prevented about $12 billion in losses from cybercrime and arrested more than 4,900 people since it initiated its computer crime investigations 30 years ago, the agency’s deputy director said Tuesday.

Speaking at the Dow Jones Global Compliance Symposium, A.T. Smith said the Secret Service presently is investigating 171 cases of cybercrime, ranging from the massive data breach at retailer Target Corp.TGT +0.70% to incursions on small mom-and-pop businesses.

Regardless of the size of a company, Mr. Smith said it’s important for a business to have a response plan in place before a breach occurs, and to quickly notify law enforcement so agents can spring into action sooner rather than later. “It’s probably only a matter of time” before your company becomes a victim of cybercrime, he said.

One of the obstacles to bringing cybercriminals to justice is the fact many of them are located in Russia and other Eastern European countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the U.S., and won’t hand over alleged criminals for prosecution. That leaves the agency to try to catch some of these people when they leave their home countries, as was the case recently with the arrests of two men who were traveling in Romania. A third man connected to that case was extradited by the Romanian government.

The State Department is working to develop better cooperation with the government in Ukraine, Mr. Smith said. On another front, a bill before Congress would let agents use the RICO organized crime statutes to go after these cybergangs, which Mr. Smith said can be very small and loosely organized.

Many of these loose networks of cyber bad guys communicate with each other on the Internet, with one gang maybe creating malware that can steal information, a second group introducing that malware into companies’ computer networks, a third tier of criminals using the stolen data to make counterfeit credit cards and a fourth level of street criminals using those fake cards to make illegal, purchases.

Sourse: blogs.wsj.com