Protection against terrorism, child exploitation and identity theft are a few of the major cyber crimes the FBI faces, said a special agent Friday.

FBI Special Agent David F. Schwarz spoke to ISU students about cyber crime.

The priorities of the FBI include protecting the United States from a terrorist attack and foreign intelligence, Schwarz said. He said his department protects the country against cyberbased attacks and high-tech crimes.

Challenges he faces in his field are people getting smarter, which make them harder to keep up with, Schwarz said.

He said financial institutions face a unique situation in that they don’t want to report a cyber crime because they might not know themselves, or they don’t want others to know because it might cause a loss of confidence in the institution.

“People inside the department may be involved in the crime,” Schwarz said. “It’s always better to have someone on the inside.”

Online child exploitation is another problem his department faces.

The Internet has made child pornography more abundant, he said.

Another hot topic Schwarz discussed was identity theft.

“It’s getting bigger by the day,” Schwarz said. “Terrorists are our number one concern.”

Schwarz also explained how his department handles cyber crime cases.

“When we investigate, we look at the likely sources of attack,” he said.

Independent hackers, spamming, password cracking, viruses and security were other topics relating to cyber crime Schwarz touched on.

Schwarz also spoke about security clearances for prospective students going into the computer fields, and possibly looking at a job in the FBI.

Security clearances are different for every agency, but most rely on the FBI, Schwarz said.

“We look at your education, transcripts, credit history, arrest record, talk to your friends,” Schwarz said. “We talk to people you haven’t talked to in three or four years.”

Schwarz’s most important piece of advice to those going into the computer-related engineering fields was “don’t lie about anything,” he said.

Students expressed curiosity about the security checks before getting hired.

Doug Houghton, senior in computer science, said he would like to work for the FBI one day, and he enjoyed hearing Schwarz speak.

“[Schwarz] gave a good overview of the organization,” Houghton said.