14 DAY TRIAL // The administration under president Obama thinks that those who commit cybercrimes should be held more responsible for their actions, current laws being too soft.
Pablo Martinez was quoted by the The Hill as saying that maximum sentences for these illegal activities should better keep up with the amount of damage caused by them.
As a Secret Service Deputy Special Agent in Charge, Martinez revealed that "Online criminals organize in networks, often with defined roles for participants, in order to manage and perpetuate ongoing criminal enterprises dedicated to stealing commercial data and selling it for profit."
"Secret Service investigations have shown that complex and sophisticated electronic crimes are rarely perpetrated by a lone individual," Martinez further went.
He appeared along with Associate Deputy Attorney General James Baker in front of the Senate's Judiciary Committee to discuss potential modifications made to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act regarding the penalties for illegal online activities.
"As computer technology has evolved, it has become a key tool of organized crime," Baker said.
He also believes that "Many of these criminal organizations are similarly tied to traditional Asian and Eastern European organized crime organizations."
According to Baker, identity theft, extortion and corporate espionage are going to the next level and in order to pass a valid legislature they are willing to collaborate with Congress on some of the issues, the final goal being the reduction of these phenomena.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal told the committee that private companies should also be forced to a certain point to take more drastic measures against cyberattacks.
While organizations excuse themselves as having limited resources, the associate deputy attorney general seems to agree with the senator, mentioning that the loss of investor trust, the stock value decrease and the integrity of corporate data has not been enough for companies to take a better stand.
The number of hacker groups and solitaire cybercriminals are at an all-time high, the arrests made lately being in vain if the regulations are not changed accordingly.