Challenges Facing Federal Agencies in Fighting Digital Crimes
Cyber crimes have drastically and rapidly risen up the ranks of dreadful crimes that law agencies face. They have the challenge of handling cybercrimes using limited resources (Curtis, 2000). The agencies are normally called upon to cut back their inadequate budgets consequently, reducing the amount of resources available at their disposal. In that effect, they function at a reduced level of competency.
The first challenge is that the agencies cannot acquire enough initial investment to match the expensive demand posed by cyber crimes (Curtis 2000). Moreover, the agencies needs a consistent inflow of cash to aid in keeping the equipment in good operational shape and ensuring that the agents receive competitive skilled training. Forensic software is costly, and the agencies need to keep storage devices in mint condition. The training is vital in ensuring that collected evidence remains well kept without adding, altering, removing, or changing data on the storage device. Another challenge posed is the need for specialized and up-to-date training on how to handle and control cyber crimes. The training usually focuses on file structures, file storage, and handling of operating systems. The investigators must be intelligent enough to bypass the secure firewalls of the seized computers’ hard drives. At times, seized computers may require “Boot Disks” with unaltered operating systems. The skills needed, require special forensic training that may be too costly (Gercke, 2012).
Another challenge that should not go unchecked is the existing kinks of weaknesses such as monoculture and homogeneity operating systems. The constantly evolving and mushrooming resilience on ICTs leaves the systems prone to danger of getting attacked. Since many private users use Microsoft Operating Systems, thus criminals can formulate new attacks focusing on a single target (Curtis, 2000). The popularity of online services and products continues to spread like an infection. Increase of internet users reflects an increase in the number of vulnerable targets and cyber crime cases. The vast numbers of vulnerable victims cause difficulties for the law enforcement agencies since it’s hard to automate forensic investigation services (Gercke, 2012).
Strategies to Use in Reducing Cybercrimes
An anti-cybercrime plan should be an essential part in reducing the vast cases of digital crimes and terrorism. Agencies should opt for dialog and international cooperation to enable them effectively and efficiently handle transnational cybercrimes.
In a bid to ensure that cyber crimes are effectively reduced, the agencies should ensure that already established anti-cybercrime strategies get implemented (Gercke, 2012). The implementation of these pre-planned strategies should consider the availability of resources in an agency and the technical capabilities of each agency. Only through analyzing their competency, can they effect the change desired. The transnational nature of cyber crimes prompts anti-cybercrime agencies to formulate harmonized policies that support inter-agency cooperation geared towards effectively handling transnational cybercrimes. The agencies should clearly outline cyber crime legislation that should be updated, altered, or amended to suit efficient anti-cybercrime operations (Gercke, 2012).
Lastly, the main concern of criminal agencies should pinpoint strategies aimed at preventing crime rather than countering crime. Reprimanding criminals may aid in reducing cyber crimes; however, prevention of cyber crimes forms a key and vital step against reducing the rising rates of cyber-related crimes. The prevention strategies may involve technical strategies that would automatically block access to illegal documents (Gercke, 2012).
In conclusion, cyber crime fighting agencies perform a pivotal role in the fight against cyber crimes. The malleable nature of cyber crimes demands innovativeness and creativity in designing counter-strategies aimed at reducing their prevalence.
References
Curtis, P. A. (2000). Cyber Crime: The Next Challenge. An Overview of the Challenges Faced by Law Enforcement While Investigating Computer Crimes in the Year 2000 and Beyond. Arkansas: School Of Law Enforcement Supervision. Retrieved from: http://www.cji.edu/site/assets/files/1921/cyber_crime_paper.pdf
Gercke, M. (2012, September). Understanding cybercrime: phenomena, challenges and legal response: ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau. Retrieved from http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/cyb/cybersecurity/docs/Cybercrime%20legislation%20EV6.pdf
