Across Europe and elsewhere police agencies are teaching officers how to use computer forensics to combat the new and growing trend of crimes perpetrated over the Internet.

As criminals are using the Internet to commit crimes such as extortion and drug dealing, it’s becoming more important for police departments to be able to collect high-tech evidence for such crimes.

“I expect new staff to have an absolute minimum of computer and software forensics before they even walk in the door,” says Marc Kirby, detective inspector for the computer forensics section at Britain’s National Hi-Tech Crime Unit.

But police agencies in most countries are still working to bridge a gap in technological knowledge.

British police are now being taught how to find “malware” in PCs. This is the term for computer code programmed to corrupt people’s hard drives, often for financial gain.

The idea is that police officers need to fully understand what criminals are doing to be able to find it. Now more cops are getting ready to beat criminals at their own game.