Have you ever felt uneasy about using your Smartphone to do your online banking? Do you ever wonder if someone, somewhere, is tapping into your phone calls, reading your private text messages or hacking into your laptop? Then "CSI: Cyber" is the show for you!
"CSI: Cyber," starring Oscar-winning actress Patricia Arquette, made its long-awaited debut on CTV Wednesday night and while the digital storylines and cyber criminal subject matter is enthralling, you can't help but think, "Could this really happen to me?"
That's the question Wednesday's premiere episode had us contemplating. The series starts off with the agents from the FBI's Cyber Crime Division investigating a kidnapping. But as Special Agent Avery Ryan (played by Arquette) explains to her colleagues, this isn't just a kidnapping.
We quickly find out that the "Kidnapping 2.0" was initiated by a group of cyber criminals who hack baby monitors.They use the monitors to spy on unsuspecting families, which aid them in kidnapping babies for an underground baby auctioning business. Turns out baby Caleb was auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder!
Now it's up to Agent Ryan, Mundo and the rest of the cyber crew to use their technological skills to find baby Caleb.
While the show may take these cyber crimes to the extreme, it tackles the dos and don'ts of living in a digital world and how to avoid being a target for cyber crime.
Here are 5 Things we've learned from "CSI: Cyber:"
1. Any Crime involving electronic devices is a 'cyber crime'
In the beginning of the episode, Agent Ryan tries to convince her boss, Stavros Sifter (Peter MacNicol), that this kidnapping case should be assigned to the cyber unit. After he informs her that it is already assigned to another unit she lets him know that this crime involves electronic devices and that makes it a cyber case.
2. Spy software is cheap and readily available
After confiscating all the electronic devices from the parents of the kidnapped baby, malware expert Daniel Krumitz (Charley Koontz) and newcomer Brody Nelson (Shad Moss aka Bow wow) look for malware back at the lab. They find out that someone hacked the mother's devices, to keep track of baby Caleb, with a simple remote access Trojan malware that can be found anywhere on the net for $40.
3. Sometimes it takes a hacker to track a hacker
Brody Nelson is a convicted hacker turned good guy and the newest member of the "CSI: Cyber" team. Special Agent Ryan recruited him to help find hackers and solve crimes. If he follows the rules and does what he's told he will avoid jail time.
4. Social Media is the best thing to ever happen to law enforcement
Back at the lab Nelson and Raven Ramierz (Hayley Kiyoko), who is the resident social media expert, use the prints to identify one of the kidnappers. In a few minutes they find the kidnapper's "Friend Agenda" account where they find out what kind of car the kidnapper and her partner drive.
5. Your cyber identity is just as important as your real identity, guard it with your life!
The episode ends with Nelson asking Agent Ryan why she gave him a chance to join the cyber team while he was in court. Ryan explains to him that before she was a part of the cyber unit she was a psychologist with a private practice. One day all of her clients' private files were leaked to the public by a hacker and one of her clients was murdered. She never found the perpetrator. Now her goal, as Special Agent Ryan of the "CSI: Cyber" unit, is to protect others from cyber crimes and to bring all cyber criminals to justice one hacker at a time.
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