On November 16th, 2011, Meridith Levinson wrote for PCWorld on how, despite a successful string of crackdowns on hacking groups like Anonymous and LulzSec, law enforcement has not been effective in deterring cybercrime.  Citing a Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, the article notes that "there were more data breaches in 2010 in previous years" and that after any major arrest,  "cybercriminal organizations are quick to change their tactics to evade detection." 

This leads Levinson to the crux of her argument: law enforcement officials lack the training, technical resources, manpower, and political support in order to stop hackers.  One cybercrime investigator said "We are never going to solve the [cybercrime] problem. We are just trying to keep a lid on it . . . We don't even know how many of these activities are going on. We're only aware of a fraction of what's happening. That makes it a very hard problem to deal with."

The article goes on to explain why law enforcement has such trouble stopping hackers.  First, with regard to investigation, law enforcement can track the hackers back to their computers, but the volume of intrusions makes it almost impossible to keep up.  Second, law enforcement has limited resources to deal with hackers; law enforcement officials direct most of their time towards online child exploitation, so computer intrusion cases aren't necessarily the priority.  Furthermore, the article notes that "law enforcement agencies need ongoing training to keep up with new technologies and with the evolving schemes," so the lack of resources for these trainings creates a backlog of cases.  Finally, Levinson argues that even when convicted, hackers rarely serve their full sentence.  This makes for a diminished deterrent effect.

The source article can be found here.

On November 16th, 2011, Meridith Levinson wrote for PCWorld on how, despite a successful string of crackdowns on hacking groups like Anonymous and LulzSec, law enforcement has not been effective in deterring cybercrime.  Citing a Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, the article notes that "there were more data breaches in 2010 in previous years" and that after any major arrest,  "cybercriminal organizations are quick to change their tactics to evade detection." 

This leads Levinson to the crux of her argument: law enforcement officials lack the training, technical resources, manpower, and political support in order to stop hackers.  One cybercrime investigator said "We are never going to solve the [cybercrime] problem. We are just trying to keep a lid on it . . . We don't even know how many of these activities are going on. We're only aware of a fraction of what's happening. That makes it a very hard problem to deal with."

The article goes on to explain why law enforcement has such trouble stopping hackers.  First, with regard to investigation, law enforcement can track the hackers back to their computers, but the volume of intrusions makes it almost impossible to keep up.  Second, law enforcement has limited resources to deal with hackers; law enforcement officials direct most of their time towards online child exploitation, so computer intrusion cases aren't necessarily the priority.  Furthermore, the article notes that "law enforcement agencies need ongoing training to keep up with new technologies and with the evolving schemes," so the lack of resources for these trainings creates a backlog of cases.  Finally, Levinson argues that even when convicted, hackers rarely serve their full sentence.  This makes for a diminished deterrent effect.

The source article can be found here.