The Internet Crime Complaint Center: Fight Crime Online

The Internet Fraud Complaint Center (renamed IC3 for the Internet Crime Complaint Center) is a new terror-fighting partnership between the National White Collar Crime Center and the FBI.

By Paul Roberts

March 01, 2004 — CSO — Ever think of the Internet as a weapon? It is now. The Internet Fraud Complaint Center (renamed IC3 for the Internet Crime Complaint Center) is a new terror-fighting partnership between the National White Collar Crime Center and the FBI. It receives more than 1,000 online terrorism tips per day from the public.

The number of tips received in the months following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks overwhelmed the center's staff, especially when combined with the already high volume of Internet fraud complaints. That prompted the FBI to take its online terrorist tip system in-house, using its own website, www.fbi.gov, to collect information about suspicious activity as well as the name and address of the tip provider.

The FBI still fields a fair number of reports of online fraud, which it refers to the IC3 or to local authorities, says FBI spokesman Paul Bresson. That is in addition to tips provided in person or by phone to the FBI's 56 field offices and 400 satellite offices.

Bresson says online reports of possible terrorist activity are assessed and processed by employees in the FBI's Strategic Information Operations Center.

A lot of the information the FBI collects is vague. And tips surge when the Department of Homeland Security raises the national threat advisory or airs warnings about specific threats. The most recent orange alert from DHS may be an exception, or a sign that attitudes are changing, according to Bresson. The number of daily tips didn't rise above the average level during the orange alert in December, though people may have been distracted by the holidays, he says.

Read more about malware/cybercrime in CSOonline's Malware/Cybercrime section.

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