RCMP teach Nova Scotia officers about cybercrime

Police forces across Nova Scotia are getting new training in how to investigate internet-related crimes.

RCMP Cpl. Chris Hochhold designed, and is teaching, the course. He’s a senior forensic analyst with the RCMP’s H Division Tech Crime Unit.

"When someone comes in to the front counter, we want police personnel to be able to handle any investigation that comes their way," Hochhold said.

Part of the course is explaining to police what resources are available to them.

"Let them know what it is that the RCMP tech crime unit does," Hochhold said.

"We also include members of the ICE [Internet Child Exploitation] unit, as well as our LAST or legal application support team to provide an overview of the authorizations that are required to obtain information to properly investigate a crime that involved the internet."

In his regular job as a forensic analyst, Hochhold examines electronic devices including cellphones, tablets and computers for clues to any crime. He can retrieve photos and text messages and phone logs.

But for that evidence to be admissible in court, it has to be seized properly. That’s part of what Hochhold teaches. He has included members of the province’s CyberScan unit to instruct police in the evolving field of cyberbullying.

But Hochhold says a lot of the complaints frontline officers get are from people who feel they’ve been ripped off online. They usually don’t discover the problem until they realize their money is missing and they have nothing to show for it.

"By the time you realize it, unless you have alerts set up on your credit card so you're alerted to transactions that are being made over a certain amount, then you're none the wiser until your credit card is declined someplace or you get your next statement or, if you're lucky, your banking institution catches it through their fraud centres and alerts you to it and they block your credit card," Hochhold said.

People can be too trusting

Hochhold said when people are banking online, they should always keep an eye on the URL or address line at the top of the webpage. He said criminals will try to redirect victims to a webpage that resembles the real thing.

One of the giveaways, Hochhold says, is that the URL will be too long and involve too many numbers and letters that don’t relate to the real website.

Hochhold said a problem for police is that people can be too trusting.

"I think it comes back to people being very trusting by nature and wanting to believe in the good. And the belief that it's not going to happen to me or somebody wouldn't do this to me."

Hochhold designed this course last month and has only been teaching it for the past couple of weeks.

He also offers a lunch-and-learn session for civilians. He says corporations can invite him to come speak to employees about the perils of online. He said the best way to approach the tech crime unit about a lunch-and-learn session is to send an email to [email protected]