By JIM ERICKSON
c.1995 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
BELLEVUE, Wash. - While the computer industry celebrated the Internet
as the Next Big Thing at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas Tuesday, a
computer crime expert offered a cautionary tale of the perils that may
await those who venture online.
Richard Bernes, supervisor of the FBI's Hi-Tech squad in San Jose,
Calif., said that in 90 percent of the cases his office handles, the
Internet is the unlocked window in cyberspace through which thieves
crawl.
``This whole phenomenon is still new and still growing,'' Bernes said
Tuesday. ``In time, the dust will settle, but right now it's pretty
wild and woolly.''
In the rush to commercialize the Internet's World Wide Web, companies
are working to develop standards and software that safeguard vital
corporate databases as well as financial information for electronic
banking and online commerce.
But hackers pose a significant threat. The potential for theft of
credit card numbers transmitted over the Internet ``is phenomenal at
this point,'' Bernes said.
Bernes was the keynote speaker at a Bellevue seminar on high-tech
theft, sponsored by the American Electronics Association, the
Washington Software Association and the Chubb Group of Insurance
Companies.
Industrial espionage and theft of intellectual property and trade
secrets are also on the rise. Technology-related crimes cost U.S.
businesses up to $8 billion a year, and that total will likely balloon
to $200 billion in four years, according to the American Insurance
Service Group. In roughly two-thirds of the cases, the theft is an
inside job pulled by employees, former employees, or suppliers and
vendors.
High-tech crimes are no longer exclusively of the white-collar
variety. The scarcity of computer chips has fostered a nationwide rise
in burglary and strong-arm robbery involving semiconductor
manufacturers, computer makers and other electronics firms, Bernes
said.
Up until 1990, there had never been a report of an armed chip theft.
This year, he said, 46 cases have been reported between through May
25.
The incidents have been taking on an increasingly violent cast. In
Portland's Silicon Forest, thieves wearing Halloween costumes smashed
through a plate-glass window in a late-night raid at a semiconductor
plant. Thirteen workers were handcuffed and gagged, and $2 million
worth of memory chips was lifted.
Bernes urges companies to beef up security and educate workers on how
they can prevent breaches in workplace safeguards. To curtail hacking
and network incursions, companies should install software
``firewalls,'' use encryption for sensitive e-mail information and
databases, and change employee passwords frequently.
Two months ago, the FBI formed a new Computer Intrusions unit in San
Francisco to handle online break-ins.
``We are putting more and more resources into (fighting computer
crime), but as you know resources are finite,'' he said. ``It's a
struggle.''
``We like to call chip theft the crime of the '90s,'' Bernes said. ``I
think cyberspace (theft) will be the crime of the next century.''
NYT-11-15-95 0857EST
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