In the past times, cybercrimes have been dominant attention for St. Louis in Missouri, and the commissioner of the police has demanded a cybercrime task force plan. This plan will incorporate an analysis of cybercrime threats in St. Louis County, a description of the task plan structure, and the equipment applied, without forgetting the legislature procedures required in finalizing the plan. The plan will still evaluate the crimes investigative methods and task force establishments in the County and identify tools, techniques and organizational systems applied by other policing agencies to determine maximally the most significant task force to present to the police commissioner.
Executive Summary
The technology world has enormously changed at a remarkable rate. It has allowed society to develop rightful awareness of news, tremendous knowledge of information and become more open. Technology claims to play a significant role in the investigation of crimes globally. However, applying new technologies in law enforcement agencies has allowed easier solving of crimes within nations. Moreover, the world’s latest technologies have been applied to commit crimes in the whole St. Louis community. Crimes mostly committed are child pornography, computer hacking, children and adults, human trafficking, and identities theft. Thus, the St. Louis Police Department Commissioner has incorporated a Cybercrime Task Force because of the high crime rate in this community. The plan will oversee all investigations concerning cybercrimes within St. Louis County.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Cybercrime Threats in St. Louis County in Missouri
The most significant cybercrime threats faced by this County today is spamming, hacking, identity theft, credit card fraud and data breaches in healthcare facilities that pose a considerable threat to national security. Broadly, hospitals keep records of patient’s personal information like date of birth, SSN and mothers names; information required to bypass security authorization in most government sites ( Urness, 2020 ). According to reports, students in St. Louis struck conversations with grown individuals for sexual intercourse. In addition, statistics and data state that there has been a rise in sexual activities with minors over the internet. From recent studies in the County, crimes involved mainly range from nonviolent crimes to white-collar crimes to potential bombs’ threats ( St. Louis County Police Department, n.d. ). The most outstanding crime in St. Louis is pornography of unwilling children and adults, which is illegal. This is mainly done using a computer or any electronic device.
The three types of cybercrimes that the task force will prioritize incorporates:
Organizations vulnerability, including both private and public sectors. Data changes analysis and confirmation on the losses that have happened in the past six months. In which any suspicious activities will get endorsed for further assessment. Details that indicates laundering of money or critical infrastructure compromising will lead to an instant arrest.
The task force will concentrate on vulnerable people incorporating high levels of identity theft in healthcare systems, bank accounts and credit card fraud. Individuals who cannot afford healthcare in St Louis County are assuming others’ identity to acquire treatments. Nonetheless, these criminals have targeted social media platforms to assume others identity. Therefore, there has been a form of harassment and stalking through restraining warrants are offered; it serves a small purpose since social media has changed to a GPS for tracking an individual’s data.
The task force will consider the vulnerability of kids and exploiting them to human trafficking and sexual threats. This has affected the social platforms, emails and other messaging accounts. However, from limited supervisions, young kids, mainly girls, become innocent victims. In addition to sex trafficking, children are also getting recruited to terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, using social media accounts and converting kids to young jihadists, also named homegrown terrorists.
Cybercrime Task Force Structure
The task force will be multijurisdictional and will include joining forces with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents. They will set an operation base outside St. Louis for detectives to report to that section. The agents will work in four segments: one will be for capturing criminals imposing serious computer crimes like malware and viruses. The next will put undercover agents to capture sex predators through social media and eliminate child pornography (Chapter 13, Digital Evidence and Forensic Analysis ). The third group will possess a mandate to stop operations that could influence American intellectual property, and the last group will intercept and dismantle prearranged cybercrime internet deceit. These divisions will also require recruiting investigators and persons with specialized abilities to examine dominant cyber threats.
Nonetheless, most of the major concerns will be forgery and fraud since it poses the most prominent cyber threat to St. Louis citizens and other surrounding people. The FBI owns a group of specialists in computer forensics who will collect information and analyze using their software. Additionally, as money laundering has been the significant inside of corrupt agencies, everyone will undergo a well-reviewed background lookout for security measures. Nobody will get permission to go near any evidence collected unless they get granted access by the police commissioner.
The criminal investigation section will focus on laws applicable to apprehend the computer information and the individual behind the computer. The intelligence service will also offer enough data concerning operations, be acquainted with St. Louis County, and can blend with society. The last segment of the structure will incorporate the financial attributes required in keeping the task force running and operational. After all, units will get informed of duties and prepared for the task force. The Federal Bureau of Investigations must announce that they will be working together with the National White-Collar Crime Center (NW3C), which will help in dealing with occurring cybercrimes in St. Louis County.
Nonetheless, if the task force requires more help, the NSA has also requested to collaborate with the FBI as some criminals in their lists live in this County. Thus, the more the agents work together, then the more they will bring together enough operational and practical tools to capture and deal with cybercrimes criminals in St. Louis. The FBI will be tasked with establishing relationships within the County. All data will get equally shared within NSA and NW3C; the police have also put aside a command center for security needs and collected intel processing. The data should not leave the command place. Moreover, the unit must secure evidence, plus computers and laptops must be handled by professional and trained cyber forensics.
Child pornography, together with ransom and solicitation, will also get incorporated into the task force structure. Technology has broadly altered the way law enforcement protects people, and thus the task force must instill tools and enough knowledge appropriate for preventing unforgivable crimes. Chat rooms and social media will get monitored using secure internet sources by applying the public library sources of the internet and warrants provided to local sources of the internet to cooperate and offer access to their schemes to apprehend and monitor criminals stopping online sexual activities (Chapter 12, Digital Forensics). After the malware infects the computers used by these criminals, the task force will know their location through the IP addresses, and arrests can occur.
Cyber Crime Task Force Equipment
The task force will require computers, phones, blackberry devices, satellites, radios, cable devices, and a computer lab to process the collected information. The officers working in combating cybercrimes will require technology and resources in working productively with the application of updated criminal codes to feed to the framework. Nonetheless, hardware and software must rightfully pinpoint malware, viruses and Trojans, which the criminals might apply to corrupt the machines. Internet connections must be from private servers, which should be challenging for cybercriminals to detect, thus giving the taskforce enough time to perform their work. The task force will also use secured channel connections that will offer communication with the emergency command team, which will control the traffic systems. All necessary items for the team will be within the allocated budget, and any inclusion funding gets cleared with the police commissioner.
A huge unused section will be required for developing a cyber-lab for the forensics specialists to use. Possibly, the team will use an old school building that has been vacated for the past years. The reason is that this will be the last place that criminals will suspect as the location of the base and will provide a perfect location for the task force unit. A standby generator will be required in case of power loss and emergency distribution of kits, which will take care of severe weather conditions that might forbid analysist from leaving the operation center. The building must also have people at all moments. Due to this, a national army guard will get placed within the building to protect working people and the data in the area ( Chapter 13, Information Security and Infrastructure Protection ). These systems are essential since with the new advancements in technology, the social, cultural aspects have changed and the law is effectively working. Technology and computers are currently linked to every home; this enables victims to get targeted easily. Social media is the easiest way to steal people information and can influence many organizations and lives. However, implementing a strong system in the task force team in St Louis will enable the unit to draw out and pinpoint cybercriminals who possess cruel intentions on the County citizens.
Cyber Crime Legislation
The provisions and legislation that must be established in this County to boost local law enforcement’s capacity to investigate the crimes incorporate working with the District Attorney's office when enforcing fines and penalties to the criminals. Nonetheless, the new legislation must be about the type of cybercrime committed ( Chapter 14, Digital Crime and Terrorism ). All jurisdictions must get implemented by the government to share data and work along with the task force; this will be significant. It will enable undercover operations to become prosperous without compromising the team's plan from lack of expertise. Tampering with computer equipment, digital evidence, and computers users must all get dealt with rightfully as the punishment should fit the crime ( Urness, 2020 ). As the state laws keep changing, it is significant to contact the District Attorney’s office for references. The criminals caught breaking these rules, and regulations must be banned from using any technological equipment by wearing an electronic bracelet that notifies their activities to the control team.
Conclusion
Other factors to reconsider while building the task force team will be to encourage parents to observe their kids’ internet activities to protect them from becoming victims of cybercrimes. Local schools must also have mandatory rules on educating their students on the application of the internet responsibly and safely. The task force’s main idea is to develop a central unit to fight cybercrimes in St. Louis County in Missouri. The appropriate steps undertaken have been examined cautiously to combat technology. Although technology has boosted many social aspects, it has also made the general public victims and targets of organized cybercriminals.
References
Chapter 14, Digital Crime and Terrorism: A Forecast of Trends and Policy Implications
Chapter 13, Information Security and Infrastructure Protection.
Chapter 12, Digital Forensics
Chapter 13, Digital Evidence and Forensic Analysis
Chapter 11, Access to Stored Communications
Nouh, M., Nurse, J. R., Webb, H., & Goldsmith, M. (2019). Cybercrime investigators are users too! Understanding the socio-technical challenges faced by law enforcement. arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.06961 . Retrieved from: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.06961
St. Louis County Police Department. (n.d.). 2015 Annual Report. Planning and Analysis Unit. Retrieved from: https://www.stlouisco.com/Portals/8/docs/document %20library/police/Annual%20Repors/2015%20Annual%20Report %20Final%20Draft.pdf
Urness, D. (2020). The Standing of Article III Standing for Data Breach Litigants: Proposing a Judicial and a Legislative Solution. Vand. L. Rev. , 73 , 1517. Retrieved from: https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/vanlr73§ion=40
