Seal of the United States Department of Justice

The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) is a section of the Criminal Division of the

U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

in charge of investigating computer crime ( hacking,

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's ...

worms Worms may refer to: *Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs Places *Worms, Germany Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...

) and

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

crime. They are additionally responsible for prosecuting privacy invasions by criminals such as

hackers A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

, cyberstalkers, and purveyors of mobile

spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user—for example, by violating their priva ...

, and specializing in the search and seizure of

digital evidence In evidence law, digital evidence or electronic evidence is any probative information stored or transmitted in digital form that a party to a court case may use at trial. Before accepting digital evidence a court will determine if the evidence ...

in computers and on networks. CCIPS has been responsibleDepartment of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Monday, October 31, 2016, Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section Celebrates 20 Years, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/criminal-division-s-computer-crime-and-intellectual-property-section-celebrates-20-years for: * the prosecution of infamous hackers such as

Albert Gonzalez Albert Gonzalez (born 1981) is an American computer hacker and computer criminal who is accused of masterminding the combined credit card theft and subsequent reselling of more than 170 million card and ATM numbers from 2005 to 2007: the bigge ...

,Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Friday March 26, 2010, Leader of Hacking Ring Sentenced for Massive Identity Thefts from Payment Processor and U.S. Retail Networks, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/leader-hacking-ring-sentenced-massive-identity-thefts-payment-processor-and-us-retail who led a hacking ring that stole over 40 million debit and credit card numbers by infiltrating major payment processor and retail networks across the country, * the multi-nation effort that disrupted the "

Gameover ZeuS GameOverZeus is a peer-to-peer botnet based on components from the earlier ZeuS trojan. The malware was created by Russian hacker Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev. It is believed to have been spread through use of the Cutwail botnet. Unlike its pr ...

Botnet A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send spam, and allow the attacker to access the device and its conn ...

and "

CryptoLocker The CryptoLocker ransomware attack was a cyberattack using the ''CryptoLocker'' ransomware that occurred from 5 September 2013 to late May 2014. The attack utilized a trojan that targeted computers running Microsoft Windows, and was believed ...

" Ransomware scheme that was connected to the indictment of the alleged Russian cybercriminal Evgeniy Bogachev,Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Monday June 2, 2014, U.S. Leads Multi-National Action Against “Gameover Zeus” Botnet and “Cryptolocker” Ransomware, Charges Botnet Administrator, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-leads-multi-national-action-against-gameover-zeus-botnet-and-cryptolocker-ransomware * obtaining a conviction that was handed down by a

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

jury in the case of Christopher Rad, who organized an international securities fraud ring and

stock manipulation In economics and finance, market manipulation is a type of market abuse where there is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market; the most blatant of cases involve creating false or misleading appearances ...

through

Botnets A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send spam, and allow the attacker to access the device and its conn ...

, * the indictment of

Kim Dotcom Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz; 21 January 1974), also known as Kimble and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is a German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur and political activist who resides in Glenorchy, New Zealand. He first rose to fame in Germany in the 1990s ...

, who operated

Megaupload.com Megaupload Ltd was a Hong Kong-based online company established in 2005 that operated from 2005 to 2012 providing online services related to file storage and viewing. On 19 January 2012, the United States Department of Justice seized the do ...

, a website that enabled large scale online copyright infringement and digital piracy,Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Thursday, January 19, 2012, Justice Department Charges Leaders of Megaupload with Widespread Online Copyright Infringement, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-charges-leaders-megaupload-widespread-online-copyright-infringement * and working with various U.S. Attorney's Offices across the nation as well as a number of international partners to prosecute " Darknet market" websites hosted by the

Tor network Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...

.Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/more-400-onion-addresses-including-dozens-dark-market-sites-targeted-part-global-enforcement

References

Federal law enforcement agencies of the United States United States intellectual property law Computer law organizations United States Department of Justice agencies {{Computer-security-stub