Cyber Policing Crosses Borders

In the digital age, the new brand of criminal can operate sans ski mask and rarely carries a gun. In fact, if you met him on the street corner, chances are he would look no different from you.

Often, criminal threats now come from tech-savvy thieves using computer coding to infiltrate your hard drive, impersonate a merchant or auction off merchandise that doesn't even exist, all for the purpose of swindling you out of your money, or better yet, your credit card number.

And in the corporate world, it could be a trusted employee who is manipulating computer files to bilk a company for millions.

But these threats are not going unchecked. Law enforcement agencies across the country are dedicating manpower and technical training to police the cyber stratosphere for ever-evolving scams.

Dan Larkin, chief of the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, has spent eight of his 19 years with the FBI dedicated to stopping cybercrimes.In addition to his role with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, Larkin is affiliated with the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of law enforcement and business industry representatives that researches and investigates cybercrime, including corporate computer crimes.

Larkin says it's important for law enforcement officers to share ideas across federal, state and local agencies as well as with business and industry groups. Heavy collaboration is a necessity, he said, because like the Internet itself, cybercrime is constantly changing, making the need for equally technophilic law enforcement a necessity.

"Every time we plug up one hole, they start looking for another one," he said. "They're costing e-commerce companies and consumers hundreds of millions of dollars every year."