The Orange County Regsiter reports that Orange County law enforcement agencies intend to open a $5 million FBI digital forensics lab, aka cyber crime lab, in February intended to stop cyber criminals who are becoming more and more sophisticated in their use of high tech electronics to commit cyber crimes.

The new Orange County FBI cyber crime lab will be the 16th of its kind in the country. While the exact location of the cyber crime lab hasn’t been disclosed, there is speculation that it will open in the central part of Orange County, such as Santa Ana.

Currently, California has the largest percentage of cyber crime victims at 14% of all victims in the country according to the FBI’s 2007 Internet Crime Reports.

The FBI, Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Anaheim, Santa Ana, Irvine, Westminster, Newport Beach and Fullerton police departments have all agreed to staff the OC cyber crime lab with forensic examiners and other resources having signed a Memorandum of Understanding Wednesday to formalize their commitment to the effort. These agencies have committed to staff the crime lab with 26 full-time forensic examiners who will work on both federal and state cases.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jason G. Weiss, who will oversee the facility and believes that “by combining man power in the community, we are more effective in how we combat cyber crime.” Weiss adds, “it’s not that the number of cases (over the years) has increased dramatically, but the cases are getting larger. One household can have six computers.”

Orange County forensic examiners at the FBI cyber crime lab will use the latest technology to help law enforcement agencies extract information from digital devices. Cyber criminals are getting more and more creative in the technology used to commit their crimes. On display at the news conference on Wednesday at the Santa Ana Police Department were a number of items currently used such as USB drives disguised in the form of thunbs, key chains and Legos.

Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters believes the Orange County FBI cyber crime lab will be “a model for the world, as that’s the plan and expectation.”

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Tags: FBI, fbi cyber crime lab, FBI digital forensic lab, Orange County, santa ana

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 8:41 am and is filed under Cyber Crime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.