Collaring the cybercrook: an investigator's view

In 1996 the U.S. Federal Computer Incident Response Capability (FedCIRC) reported more than 2500 incidents, defined as adverse events in a computer system or networks caused by a failure of a security mechanism, or an attempted or threatened breach of these mechanisms. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Computer Crimes Squad, Washington, D.C., estimates that less than 15 percent of all computer crimes are even detected, and only 10 percent of those are reported. Without solidly built investigative techniques, which would contribute to a public perception of safety, the very stability of today's military and commercial institutions, not to mention the cybermarkets that are envisioned for the Internet, is called into question. The paper discusses types of computer crime and security attacks. It also presents a classification of the types of security crackers.