After 2001, the FBI mandated that all 56 field offices in the country create a “cyber squad.” The group of agents would have one job: investigating Internet crime.

The Western New York business community was introduced to a couple of representatives of the FBI Buffalo Division’s “cyber squad” at the seventh annual Western New York Technology Forum, held Thursday at Conference Center Niagara Falls. The forum was designed to bring local businesses up to speed on innovations in the technology security field.

FBI Special Agent Holly Hubert and FBI Special Agent Joe Ondercin explained why people in business need to be aware of Internet crime, the problems it causes and, most importantly, what to do it about it. The presentation began with how the FBI dealt with the threat.

“We were really behind the eight-ball with regard to cyber matters,” Hubert said. “We have an exclusive squad that deals with cyber matters. We have a lot of good expertise and hired a lot of good young agents with IT (information technology) experience.”

The FBI is concerned with Internet crime because of terrorist recruiting and training Web sites, hackers and child pornography. But the bureau is also concerned with industrial espionage, viruses and “botnets,” that can be devastating to a company.

“A botnet is a huge emerging problem,” Hubert said. “A botnet is an army of infected computers. Your computer is controlled by a criminal. They can be as large as a hundred thousand computers. Average home user has high speed Internet and probably no firewall. They leave the computer on all day leaving them highly susceptible. Those infected computers send out spam and can be used for other crimes, as well.”

Hubert said the best way for a company to protect itself is to have security measures such as firewalls and restricted access. Better hiring procedures work too, because 80 percent of Internet crime in a business is done by an insider, she said. She added that businesses, themselves, are best equipped to fight this. Hubert stressed the importance of reporting crimes and providing testimony when the crimes become legal cases.

The Web site, infogard.org, was created as a place businesses can find information about Internet crimes and report crimes they come across. Ondercin advised reporting anything — no matter how small the loss — because a number of crimes could be perpetrated by the same person, and that could be enough for a conviction.

“So what do we do? We rely on you,” Hubert said. She described the Infogard program as a “partnership” between businesses and the FBI. She said most businesses won’t report crimes because they are afraid of the bad press but pointed out that most of the time, the story gets out anyway.

Is cyber crime a problem that Western New York businesses are addressing? The FBI, with the University at Buffalo, conducted an anonymous survey, to which 110 local businesses responded. The survey found 46 percent of the respondents did not have a budget for information technology security.

“Imagine trying to run a project with no funding,” Ondercin said. “Doesn’t work very well.”

Of companies that did have some kind of security issue, 34 percent did not report it. Another 26 percent did not report because they thought law enforcement would not be able to help.

“I’m here to tell you,” Ondercin said. “We will help.”

About 50 vendors specializing in homeland security and technology were at the forum presented by Niagara County and infoTech Niagara. Among them was David Lowry of the New York Power Authority, whose presentation instructed businesses on how to manage e-mail. Niagara County Data Processing director Larry Helwig said the forum stretched its budget to include as many vendors as possible. He said the event was mutually beneficial for vendors and the businesses that attended.

“They (the vendors) need to sell stuff, and it’s great for networking,”

Contact reporter Joe Olenick at 439-9222, ext. 6241.