BUTLERTWP — Representatives from companies including Armstrong and NexTier and agencies such as the Grove City police on Thursday heard from experts about cyber crimes in Western Pennsylvania.

They heard about fired employees who hack into business databases.

They heard about phony companies that use the Internet to sell bogus software.

They heard about extortionists who take private information ransom.

To Shannon Rotunao, who sat in the audience, these stories made her realize that preventing these crimes is what she wants to do.

Rotunao, 18, on Wednesday applied to the computer forensics program at Butler County Community College, where students learn to collect digital evidence for use in the prosecution of a computer crime. The college's admissions staff told her about the seminar, which had been planned since January.

Andrew Wittmark, a BC3 student in his final year of the computer forensics program and a member of the Computer Forensics Association at BC3, worked with his adviser Jan Tudor to line up three Pittsburgh speakers for the event in the Succop Theater at the college.

He said it was Tudor's idea to hold the seminar to help educate the community about the science of computer forensics and to give companies a resource should they be victims of cyber crimes.

This allowed Rotunao to drive from Sharon to join about 70 others who heard from an FBIagent and two attorneys from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh.

Rotunao, who cites her favorite television show as Law and Order: SVU, said she wants to enter the field to prevent crimes to children. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office both prioritize child pornography as a cyber crime they want to combat.

"My passion is to help children," she said. "This seems like the best way."

As she investigated the career of computer forensics, she found how wide the field is.

Ben Osterling, a Computer Forensics Association member, said when he tells people he studies computer forensics, people often ask if he works with dead people. Usually, he said, he gives a chuckle and says "no."

But to the audience Thursday he explained the five part process in computer forensics — data needs to be duplicated, verified, preserved, recovered and analyzed.

Special agent Bill Shore explained how his computer crime investigation section team applied that information in several cases in the Pittsburgh area.

In the case of Kenneth Patterson, an employee who was fired from a company dependent on its computer network, his team found Patterson was responsible for manipulating computer routers and disrupting business on Black Friday.

Manish Jadhov also sought revenge on the company that fired him. He used computers at his next workplace to gain access to the first company's data.

Both men were convicted of federal charges related to their cases.

Paul Hull and Luke Dembosky, both of the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office, explained how they bring those suspected of computer crimes to court.

Hull said there are 18 federal statutes used to prosecute computer crime, and more and more of those prosecuted are juveniles.

Dembosky said other trends in cyber crimes he has seen are an expansion of cyber criminals from traditional areas such as Eastern Europe across the world and computer hackers using third party computers to launch attacks, called bot networks.

Rotunao said she someday hopes to work at the FBI helping protecting people from the trends in cyber crime.

Anyone who is a victim of a cyber crime can report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.