Cybercrime Technology

[djc0501]

I am currently enrolled in school for computer engineering and am considering changing to a degree in cybercrime technology. Who is handling hiring in this field? Is it local law enforcement or federal? Also, is being a police officer a prerequisite to be employed in this position? There does not seem to be much information out there. Anyone able to supply me with some?

[cecilVA]

Hmm that sounds like a pretty interesting degree. Sounds like hiring could be done lots of different ways. Private companies who make LE products, consulting firms, depts, etc. Some municipal departments have sworn officer that do the computer crime stuff which means they've been a cop for awhile before that job. I'm sure there are others where the computer crime folks are kinda like crime scene techs in that they are hired just for that job. Federal may be about the same way.

[greenlead]

Please post more info!

That's my field of interest right now.

I wanna be an geek and a cop at the same time.

Are there any colleges that offer good specialized classes in this area of study?

[cecilVA]

Well I know those schools that have comp sci/comp eng type majors sometimes have special classes geared towards forensics and what not. Just have to look for them. Might want to do some creative googleing (ha ha is that a word now?) and see if you can find some kind of association for computer forensics people. If they have one for bike cops, they should have one for those guys. There should be pretty good info there as well.

[Bryan]

couple of decent links

http://nobel.scas.bcit.ca/ihtml/fore...03byDate.ihtml

http://www.onlinepoliceacademy.org/courses/

http://www.canyoncollege.edu/cc/law%...bus/ccj385.htm

[mcsap]

We as local LE do not have any kind of full time position for this. It would be a detective who would do this in addition to their regular duties. And det's start out as street cops. I would think that you would start out on the street in almost any dept. Possible exceptions, FBI, RCMP and other federal agencies.

[Bryan]

In our outfit everyone starts on the street with maybe a few exceptions. They can and do get promoted to the specal units starting at about 6 years of service. The RCMP is great in terms of paying for any schooling remotely related to Law enforcement no questions asked. We have some units that are 4 years or more that are appreticeships where you really cant get any schooling for that particular disipline and if you make the grade, your in the unit for the rest of your service, ie dog handlers, Ident units, Geo Profiling.
However the key to any of these units is a combination of being in the right place at the right time and networking unit members, as i suspect it is much the same in most depts

[rdp]

We have a full time unit just for that....think it is up to 8 guys now. They are performing a list of part time people for assisting when the workload jumps.

[Swat1]

We, being the former US Customs Service and now Immigration and Customs Enforcement and soon to be Department of Homeland Security Investigations and Criminal Enforcement (confused enought yet?), have a very large dedicated Cybercrime enforcement program. I am in an office with 15 agents and 2 of them are devoted to Computer Forensics. They are full ICE Special Agents who have been given additional training and equipment to conduct computer forensics (CF). They do CF for the whole office, so the variety of cases they assist with is large. They are in high demand and are always very busy. They also work Child Pornography cases as that is 99% computer related in this time and age.

In addition our agency has the "Cybersmuggling Center" back in the DC area, which handles all kinds of cyber crimes even though the name says smuggling. There are alot of agents assigned to the center who "play" on computers all day long, working all kinds of cases. From money laundering, terrorist financing, child pornography, strategic arms and technology exports, narcotics smuggling, alien smuggling, you name it. So ICE is currently devoting a large amount of personnel and resources to this area and I only see that getting bigger.

Rarely a case is worked where a computer is not involved in this day and age. Even with 2 guys in my 15 agent office, they are swamped. 9 of 10 times we encounter a computer or computers at search warrants, etc. In one case I had five computers and storage media for the our CFA's (Computer Forensic Agents) to image and analyze. They analyze all kinds of stuff too, not just the traditional computer. Thumb drives and other electronic storage media of all types, hard drives, PDA's, cell phone memories, etc. Anything electronic that can store data, they will work.

Almost all federal LE agencies have CFA's or some version. It's just a matter of the numbers.

Swat1*

[greenlead]

I'm planning on being a detective. Around here, I have to have two years of street time before being allowed to bid on a promotion to detective.

On a side thought: Are detectives allowed to go on regular patrol every once in a while? Just for fun, maybe? :D