Published: October 24 2000 18:22GMT Last Updated: October 24 2000 22:37GMT By: Peter Spiegel When the FBI began investigating a computer break-in at New York-based Bloomberg News earlier this year, they came upon a troubling realisation: the hackers were based in Kazakhstan, a country more known for its occasionally shady oil dealings than international law enforcement co-operation. But when US lawmen contacted Kazakh government officials, they were in for another, more pleasant surprise: "The co-operation we received from the Kazakh authorities was very good," said the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ron Dick. With the help of the Kazakhs, the two culprits were lured to London, and arrested by UK police. Such is the nature of investigating and stopping cybercrime, a scourge that by one estimate costs global businesses $1.5bn annually. Although almost all crimes - from bank robberies to aeroplane hijackings - potentially have international links, computer-based crimes have become almost exclusively global in nature, whether because of offshore "hop sites" used by criminals to confuse investigators or because computer security can be more lax in developing countries such as Kazakhstan. "It's the nature of the crime," said Mr Dick, head of computer investigations at the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Centre (NIPC), and thus America's top cybercop. "There are only a handful of cases where we're not addressing things from an international standpoint." But the global nature of cybercrime has raised some unique and troublesome problems for the FBI and its law enforcement partners in industrial countries. At the most basic level, for instance, some developing nations do not have laws making cybercrime illegal. When the FBI tracked down the man responsible for this summer's "Love Bug" virus they were hampered by the lack of a computer crime statutes on the books in the Philippines, where the hacker was based. "The Philippine government was embarrassed," said Mr Dick in an interview with the Financial Times. "Here you have a country that wants to be part of the global economy and e-commerce and are training their people on these skills, and yet they don't have laws to deal with that." The Philippines has since passed new computer crime statutes, but having laws on the books is only a first step. Mr Dick says very few countries around the world have the technological expertise to deal with the mounting problem. The FBI has tried to help. Overseas lawmen visit the NIPC on a weekly basis, and the FBI regularly sends its agents to train other law enforcement agencies at international police academies in Budapest and Bangkok - but it is an uphill road to travel. "I don't have all the hardware, personnel and software skills that I need to address all the vulnerabilities that are out there, and I come from a law enforcement entity in a country that has pretty substantial wealth," said Mr Dick. "Take that to a country that doesn't have those kinds of resources, and obviously there are some gaps." The problem becomes even more acute since evidence of a cybercrime can often vanish in a matter of minutes. But Mr Dick remains optimistic. On top of the help the FBI received from countries like the Philippines and Kazakhstan, the US has worked almost hand-in-glove with its closest cybercrime-fighting partners - the UK and Canada - to spread the information needed. Gradually, developing countries are taking cybercrime more seriously. But the sharing of technological expertise with non-Nato allies can raise its own questions. An increasingly wired world has opened up a Pandora's box of opportunities for information warfare and state-sponsored counter-intelligence. How can the FBI be sure the law-enforcement practices it shares with developing countries will not later be used against it as weapons in a cyber battlefield? "There's always a balance," admits Mr Dick. "There's always a discussion about tools that are defensive in nature and those that are offensive. But in a cyber world, the difference is frequently one keystroke." And for the aspiring cyber terrorist, there is no more inviting target than the NIPC itself, perhaps the only place in the US government where criminal information, counter-intelligence, and proprietary data from the private sector are gathered in one place. It is a fear that keeps Mr Dick and his fellow cybercops constantly on their toes. "There's always been a concern that someday there could be a rogue state that would allow cyber criminals to exist and do their illegal activities and be out of touch from international law enforcement," he says. http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3FWFDWPEC&live=true&useoverridetemplate=ZZZ99ZVV70C&tagid=ZZZOMSJK30C&subheading=US --- Support our Sponsor ------------------------------------ Imagine a credit card with a 0% introductory APR on purchases (for complete pricing information and important terms and conditions, please click on the link below). 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