OSI chases hackers targeting Air Force computers Ovie Carroll's brown observations track across the computer sieve Line after line of computer digest scrolls past.

OSI chases hackers targeting Air Force computers

Ovie Carroll's brown observations track across the computer sieve Line after line of computer digest scrolls past. Somewhere among this sea of electronic gobbledygook is a tie to catching a hacker.

From his office at Andrews Air Force Base, Md the Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent is in chase-mode. Time is crucial. Chasing a hacker is a bit like catching a vapor trail. You've got to commit to memory it before it disappears.

"I have to master in the hacker's mind, gaze at what was done and figure on the outside the why and how," said Carroll, who has been a special agent for eight years -- the last sum of two units as a cyber-cop.

"When I consider at the keystrokes, I'm looking at his fingerprints," Carroll explained. "I can find gone out what he does on his computer and why"

This 30-something cop is common of just 48 OSI computer crime investigators. This small dispose working from strategic locations around the world, tracks and captures folks who hack Air Force computer They are the computer enforcers - the "Net Force."

Brisk business

Unfortunately, business is brisk for these cyber-sleuths, according to Special Agent C Damon Hecker, chief of OSI's computer investigations and operations program. Demand has steadily increased for his agents' services in the last decade.

As the world's computer literacy increases, for a like reason do the number of computer intrusions.

When the OSI began its computer crime program in 1978 intrusions constituted about 10 percent of a computer cop's work. In 22 years, that number springed to 85 percent. OSI bearinged 26 intrusion investigations last year.

An intrusion, by dint of OSI standards, is when a hacker gains root-level access to a computer They don't go on after cyber-kiddies that deface Web pages, or worry about probes or attempted intrusions. The agency doesn't have the resources to chase down these "nuisance" crimes. They track the hackers who attitude a threat.

"Root-level access means you're king of the system" Hecker said. "That's bad."

The Pentagon alone experiences between 10 and 15 attempted intrusions a day, according to John Hamre, former representative defense secretary.

The number of intrusions continues to climb despite enormous Department of Defense and Air Force work to stop hackers at the fore-rank door of its computer systems

"DOD and the Air Force are juicy targets," Hecker said. "The temptation to take upon the government -- be it the Air Force, FBI, NASA or the White House -- is too tempting to resist."

Folk who have been in the computer crime business awhile are cognizant of single fact. No one is hack-proof.

"Eventually it happens to everyone" Carroll said. "No matter by what means good the defenses, you will master hacked."

The October 2000 hacking of Microsoft's computer network in Redmond Wash., drives residence Carroll's point. No system is invincible. The hackers stole blueprints for software below development by the computer giant.

without deductions reality

Another toil Force reality is not each hack gets solved.

"We catch the stupid ones" Hecker said bluntly "The smart single in kinds usually get away."

many times that's tough for investigators.

"Sometimes I just have to shake my head and admit 'this guy's good'" Carroll said. "It's frustrating, if it were not that all we can do is lay in wait, wager up surveillance, and hope we gain him next time."

A normal hack goe like this. A hacker goe from a hearth computer and dials into an Internet service provider. From there the hacker goe to a place he's compromised -- it could be a academy government site or even a service provider. From there, the hacker goe to another and another and another computer with equal reason when the hacker reaches the final destination -- the target site -- it's hard for the computer cop to track.

An intrusion investigation can lead around the world. In the best case, the log lead the fit guys to the hacker's assurance door, said Hecker. Sometimes, when they knock in succession that door what they discover is someone who had a password stolen. Other times, the trail fall of the curtains in a foreign country, single that doesn't consider hacking a crime. Sometimes what they discover is flat more ominous.

"Spies today don't wear cut coats," Carroll said. "Instead, they carry laptops."

This observation brings OSI's biggest matter with computer crime in focus. Hackers aren't necessarily kids trying to experience how smart they are. They could be foreign intelligence services -- equal terrorists.

"People can die in this business," Carroll said. "If someone hacks a computer it doesn't flat have to have classified information in succession it, but information that provides a picture of our operations, that could mean the mission fails, or worse, airmen die."

The Air Force had a scare with this adumbration of scenario in 1998, when a hacker gained access to Air Force a whole s that contained logistics and operations information for operations in Southwest Asia.

"This scared us because we meditation it was coming from unfriendly nations," Hecker said. "It lasted up being kids having merriment but the potential for catastrophe was there."