Cybercrime
As our world becomes increasingly digital, criminals have developed a wide range of techniques to steal, misuse and manipulate information for their own financial gain. This is known as Cybercrime. Using sophisticated and often dangerous malware and social engineering techniques, cybercriminals can gain access to a computer network or a person’s online data, change, delete or even steal it. This can cost the victim money, time and services, and it can hurt their reputation and brand.
Cyber crimes can include extortion, ransomware attacks, identity theft, and hacking. Cyber extortion involves threatening to delete or otherwise compromise a file unless the victim pays a ransom. Other types of cyber threats include malware attacks (viruses, worms, Trojans) that interfere with or damage systems, and denial-of-service attacks (DoS) that saturate a system with traffic to make it unavailable to users.
Another challenge with cyber crimes is that they can often be committed over vast distances. A criminal in one jurisdiction can access the data of someone who lives in a different country, and because of globalization, there is no such thing as a local or national crime anymore. As a result, cybercriminals can hide their tracks and commit the crime without fear of detection.
The federal government and many states have laws that address cyber crimes. In addition, HSI provides world-class training and outreach to law enforcement partners, Congress, industry, academia, and the public to raise awareness of existing cyber threats and help people take steps to avoid them.