FBI partners with public to decrease Internet crimes

JACKSON, Tenn. — According to the FBI, Americans lose billions of dollars to Internet crimes every year, and now the FBI wants to work with you to stay ahead of it.

“We do everything we can to get the word out on how to be safe. But inevitably, we are dealing with some pretty sophisticated criminals and bad guys,” Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Jeremy Baker of the FBI Memphis Division said. “Sometimes we even see some foreign countries that hire people to get into organizations’ systems and individuals’ computers.”

That’s why the FBI is asking for the public’s help.

“The public sector, the government, the FBI, we partner with with private sector companies, organizations, enterprises,” Baker said.

They’re doing this as a preemptive strike, to stay ahead of the people who may compromise your information.

“I feel like if we do media spots like this or presentations or briefings, we can kind of let’s say, ‘harden the target,'” Baker said. “We can make it difficult for the bad guys to make them victims, to make companies or individuals victims.”

But if you or your company does become a victim of any type of cyber attack, they want to know about it, and it’s as easy as logging onto ic3.gov.

“If there is any internet-related or fraud-related issue that has happened, we would love to hear about it. That goes into a repository, and is cross-referenced and researched by analysts. Leads are actually sent out to FBI offices for us to do follow-up, whether that be interviewing or further investigating,” Baker said.