Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit

The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) is a Microsoft sponsored team of international legal and internet security experts employing the latest tools and technologies to stop or interfere with cyber crime and cyber threats. The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit was assembled in 2008. In 2013, a Cybercrime center for the DCU was opened in Redmond, Washington. There are about 100 members of the DCU stationed just in Redmond, Washington at the original Cybercrime Center. Members of the DCU include lawyers, data scientists, investigators, forensic analysts, and engineers. The DCU has international offices located in major cities such as: Beijing, Berlin, Bogota, Delhi, Dublin, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Washington, D.C. The DCU's main focuses are child protection, copyright infringement and malware crimes. The DCU must work closely with law enforcement to ensure the perpetrators are punished to the full extent of the law. The DCU has taken down many major botnets such as the Citadel, Rustock, and Zeus. Around the world malware has cost users about $113 billion and the DCU's jobs is to shut them down in accordance with the law. There are three areas on which the DCU concentrates: Child protection, combating child sexual abuse facilitated through information technology Copyright infringement and other intellectual property infringements Malware crimes, particularly botnets, internet bots used for malicious purposes Trespass to Chattel is a legal term for how the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit takes down its cyber criminals. Chattel is old English for cattle, which was considered to be valuable property to the owner. Essentially meaning that any property that is not land is referred to as chattel or "cattle". When spam or malware infects a user's computer or network that is considered to be "trespass to chattel" because they are trespassing on the user's property. The cybercrime is that the criminal has trespassed on the user's computer or network because they are responsible for the spam or malware they intended to harm the user with.