Microsoft opened the doors to its multimillion-dollar Cybercrime Center, a 16,800-square-foot facility that is one part crime-fighting headquarters and one part sleek showcase for Microsoft technologies, reports the Seattle Times. “As the cybercriminals are getting more sophisticated, our abilities are getting more sophisticated,” said David Finn of Microsoft's digital-crimes unit. The center brings together company units that focus on piracy and intellectual property theft, and on digital crimes, including botnets and malware and technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation.
About 35 of Microsoft's 100 employees worldwide employed in those units are based in the Cybercrime Center, which also includes Microsoft technologies such as Site Print, which can map online organized-crime networks, and PhotoDNA, which helps find and remove some of the worst images of child porn online. In large workspaces cordoned off behind glass walls that can convert from transparent to opaque, forensics teams look over evidence, while malware teams map online-crime networks. Down another corridor, a line of offices reveal rooms that can be occupied by visiting crime-fighting partners, such as those from law enforcement or academia.