How Well Do You Know Techno-Crime Investigations?

Why Technology Is Forcing Investigations to Evolve

• Technology is forcing investigations to evolve due to the increasing complexity of techno-crime cases.

• Techno-crime cases involve crimes that use technology to commit or conceal the crime, such as darknet markets, smart home assistants, hacked devices, infected pacemakers, drone stalking, and smart toys.

• Investigators are not adequately prepared for techno-crime cases and often turn to IT resources for help, which may not have investigative training.

• Law enforcement agencies have trouble justifying the budget for resources to address techno-crime investigations, and the demand for investigators with the needed expertise and skillsets is increasing.

• Techno-criminals and terrorists have access to better technology than law enforcement and advance faster, making it difficult for investigators to catch them.

• Best practices for investigations and security are hard to change, and improvements happen slowly.

• Limitations for investigators include current international systems of law, changing laws and standards related to privacy, and the rising costs of hiring specialized digital forensics experts and equipment.

• To be proactive in investigations, investigators need to forecast technology and crime trends and be ready with enough trained people positioned in the right places with the expertise and resources to deal with techno-crimes.

• Technology is growing at an exponential rate, and as a result, the world of investigations will change forever.

• Moore's law predicts that the number of transistors on integrated circuits will double every two years, which means that computing power will also double every two years at the same cost.

• New technologies such as email, text messages, online banking, social media, and Internet commerce have created new types of crime and fraud that didn't exist before.

• The amount of data people and companies create and store is growing exponentially, which makes investigations more complicated.The Evolution of Techno-Crime Investigations

• The problem with digital investigations is now finding a digital needle in a growing pile of digital needles that doubles every year.

• Technological advancements have given investigators more sophisticated tools, but laws and investigative practices haven’t advanced as fast or as far as technology.

• Investigators who don’t evolve with the technology will find it increasingly harder to be effective.

• The explosive growth of technology has led to globalization of crime and terrorism, making it harder for geographically-based enforcement and legal investigative jurisdiction to work.

• Transnational organized crime continues to become more sophisticated, and technology has only made this easier.

• The workforce has changed, and some predict that by 2027 over 50% of the workforce in the United States will be independent contractors or freelancers.

• Technology has made working from home or remote locations much easier in recent years, but the trend didn't gain too much momentum until the pandemic.

• Investigations professionals may be forced into what has been called the “Hollywood model” of doing business.

• No law enforcement or government agency, investigations firm, or individual investigator is prepared to deal with every type of investigation involving technology.

• 63% of all criminal cases now involve a digital component, but 52% of the chiefs of police or agency managers said that they don’t believe officers have the skills to investigate digital crimes.

• 74% of law enforcement respondents said that digital forensics examinations are taking much longer to get results to investigators.

• We don’t have enough trained techno-crime investigators, and 51% of the digital examiners who responded to the survey said that case backlogs have increased.The Importance of Digital Evidence in Techno-Crime Investigations

• 66% of respondents believe that digital evidence is more important than physical evidence in solving criminal cases.

• The digital forensics market is projected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 10-11% until 2030.

• There is a lack of digital forensics pre-planning, which can hinder successful investigations.

• Inadequate technical expertise among digital investigators is expected to challenge the digital forensics market in the forecast period of 2022-2029.

• The exponential growth of technology and increasing demand for investigators trained to deal with techno-crimes indicate a critical tipping point in how we deal with techno-crime.

• A reactive approach to techno-crimes is no longer effective, and a preactive approach is necessary to develop new expertise, tools, and training.

• Changes to legal systems may be necessary to improve the capability to deal with global techno-crime investigations.

• Balancing the need for data protection with the need for law enforcement to obtain criminal evidence or address intelligence agencies’ national security concerns is a challenge.

• Investigators and security professionals need to realize that the best practices used in the past are no longer effective.

• It may be necessary to have techno-crime knowledge and capability to be an investigator in the future.

• Suggestions for further learning and development in techno-crimes include joining a mailing list, reading a book, and seeking career coaching or business consulting services.

• Awareness about the seriousness of the techno-crimes problem is a crucial first step in getting better prepared for the changes we’ll need to be successful.