U.S. Attorney Durkan: Protecting Yourself and Your Business against Cybercrime

U.S. Attorney Durkan: 10/19/2011

The following post appears courtesy of the office of U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan of the Western District of Washington. U.S. Attorney Durkan is also the chair of the Justice Department’s Cybercrime and Intellectual Property Enforcement advisory group.

The Puget Sound region of Washington state is home to high-tech heavyweights like Microsoft, Amazon and Boeing and a flourishing start-up scene that attracts top talent from around the world. Two recent indictments and a high-profile conference put the spotlight on flipside of that success: the increased threat of cybercrime.

Jesse James said that he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is.” Today, increasingly the money – and the capacity to steal it – is online. From scareware to skimming to information theft to distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, efforts to steal money and attack our digital infrastructure are on the rise.

U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan, who chairs Justice Department’s Cybercrime and Intellectual Property Enforcement advisory group, and the prosecutors in the Western District of Washington have made combating cybercrime a top priority. That includes working with companies and individuals to enforce federal laws when systems are hacked, personal information is compromised, payroll and banking information is misused, electronic commerce is disrupted or trade secrets are stolen.

For example, last month, a grand jury indicted three defendants who hacked into computer systems to steal personal and business information used in a variety of thefts and frauds.

When the indictments were announced, U.S. Attorney Durkan said:

“These defendants combined ‘old school’ methods such as burglary, with high tech methods such as using unprotected wireless networks to hide their identities while draining bank accounts and committing fraud. The victims in this case quickly reported the hacking to law enforcement — a key step to bringing these defendants to justice.”

Critical to cracking this sophisticated scheme, which is alleged to have victimized more than 50 area businesses, was the fact that companies came forward to report the crimes. Because of that reporting, members of the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force were able to connect the dots on what looked like unrelated incidents. As part of the public education around protecting business and personal networks , the U.S. Attorney and law enforcement provided tips to protect against being a victim:

Businesses should review their wireless encryption and confirm that they are using the appropriate level of encryption (WPA2 Personal or WPA Enterprise). Businesses should keep a record of all laptop computers and ensure that any computers with remote access are encrypted. Any missing laptop computers should have passwords and c… » Vollständiger Artikel