Gartner Says Most Internet Crime Goes Unpunished; Federal Internet Enforcement Funding Less Than 1 Percent of Law Enforcement Budget.

Business Editors

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--December 7, 2000

According to Gartner Group, Inc. (NYSE: IT and ITB), governments at all levels have failed to fund resources adequately to address cybercrime, so criminals exploiting the Internet have little fear of law enforcement.

Law enforcement and cybercrime experts recently gathered at Gartner to examine criminal business models, federal law enforcement budgets and cybercrime law enforcement efforts.

The findings of Gartner's Crime on the Internet Workshop indicate that little law enforcement is applied to the Internet, a situation known by criminals at all levels. According to Gartner vice president Richard Hunter, "Willie Sutton said that he robbed banks `because that's where the money is.' Today's Internet criminals don't have to rob banks -- with currently available technology, they can just as easily rob tens of thousands of individuals, with less chance of being caught."

According to Gartner, approximately 97 percent of all law enforcement funding for cybercrime investigation in the United States is spent on about 300 federal agents -- less than 0.1 percent of the 600,000 law enforcement agents serving the United States. In 2000, federal discretionary spending on law enforcement is estimated to be $17 billion. Of that, only $10 million is allocated for computer crime-related training, staffing and support -- less than 0.1 percent of all law enforcement-related spending.

Congress has not approved a proposed appropriation for $138.4 million to be spent on law enforcement research training, and staffing on the Internet. Therefore, according to Gartner, annual federal funding for cybercrime training investigation and enforcement will not exceed 1 percent of the overall federal law enforcement budget through 2004. Furthermore, during the same time period, the economic value represented by Internet crimes is projected by Gartner to grow by as much as 1,000 percent.

The Gartner workshop participants discussed specific criminal business models likely to thrive on the Internet -- ranging from corporate espionage to insurance fraud. A recent case in California involved a team of criminals that fraudulently billed more than three million legitimate credit card holders for supposedly purchasing pornography from a Web site owned by the criminals. That criminal team collected more than $30 million in the mass-skimming effort.

"Criminals generally don't think strategically," said Hunter. "They often don't even define an exit strategy, and that may help limit the damage. In the meantime, people and businesses on the Internet must be responsible for their own electronic security, just as they are now largely responsible for the security of their homes. They must watch their transaction records with hawk-like vision. The safeguards are few at this early stage of trying to track crime on the Internet, and many crimes will go unpunished during the next three years."

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