Identity crisis: FBI plays catch-up as cyberthreats escalate by JennaMC_Laugh
In the spring of 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was on the cusp of a dramatic overhaul of the agency’s cyber capabilities. The FBI was wrapping up an agency-wide survey, and one option on the table included getting rid of the bureau’s central cyber division altogether and dispersing digital experts throughout its 56 regional offices.
According to Tonya Ugoretz, the deputy assistant director of the bureau’s cyber division, her office isn’t going anywhere. “There are no plans to not have a cyber division,” she told Yahoo News during an interview. The division “is the locus of all our intrusion investigations, whether that’s nation state or criminal.” So, after nearly two decades of focusing on terrorism and intelligence, the FBI is in the midst of an even more intensive shift toward cyber.
The FBI’s loss comes at a critical time. With the 2020 presidential elections approaching, and concerns about foreign interference as well as theft of trade secrets and intellectual property, the need for cyber experts is likely to increase. “Make no mistake, the threat just keeps escalating,” Wray, the current FBI director, told a Senate panel this week, “and we’re going to have to up our game to stay ahead of it.
In 1994, the bureau caught a glimpse of what has today become common: international adversaries committing crimes online. After multiple large banks noticed $400,000 was missing from their coffers, the FBI was ultimately led to a ring of criminal hackers led by a man in St. Petersburg, Russia. Bigger cases followed, like the FBI’s Moonlight Maze, a sophisticated, ongoing digital campaign to steal military technologies that was ultimately linked back to Moscow.
The FBI employs a variety of different employees to defend against the cyberthreat at its headquarters, around the country and overseas. “By default, everyone talks about agents and analysts,” said Ugoretz, who arrived at the bureau in 2001. At the same time, the bureau was applying lessons from fighting terrorism to the digital realm. “The FBI shifted its cyber intrusion emphasis from reacting to cyber-attacks to predicting and preventing them,” according to a 2015 DOJ Inspector General report.
In one case, the bureau arrested Hector Xavier Monsegur, known online as Sabu, for hacking private U.S. businesses and government agencies, then used him as an informant to indict other hackers. The bureau spent years hunting down terrorists disseminating propaganda and committing crimes online. In more recent years, the bureau has been at the forefront of the biggest cyber cases in modern history, including Russian interference in the 2016 U.S.
The problem that Baker refers to can be seen in both the lower and higher levels of the FBI. Over the last two years, the press has tracked several high-profile departures from the FBI’s senior cyber leadership. In July of last summer, the Wall Street Journal revealed three top FBI cyber officials were leaving within the same month, and Politico detailed the loss of about 20 “cybersecurity leaders” — a fraught time for the FBI with a near constant barrage of criticism from the president.
Experts argue that Comey’s comments make sense, and that the bureau needs to require a certain level of digital literacy and cyber know-how across the board to confront the issue. The essential challenge is how to make the entire bureau digitally competent. That includes providing basic digital training in how to apply for subpoenas to get information about a post on an online forum or on a social media website, remarked one former FBI cyber manager. However, the true technical work involved in intrusions is so “in the weeds” that many are not interested or not capable of developing those skills, the former manager said.
Some employees with technical skills felt their talents were being underutilized due to bureaucratic ranking systems. “The bureau sucks at retaining people,” said one former FBI agent. “They actively drive talent away because they do not let the people they hired for their skills use the skills they were hired for in the first place.”
“The FBI is kind of a victim of its own success,” said one retired FBI agent. “Some people who landed in the cyber track felt like they were trapped,” the official explained, unable to return to criminal cases and play the field. Both the DHS and the FBI work with the private sector, and handle sensitive information on breaches, but the FBI and the Department of Justice serve as the lead for responding to a cyberattack, collecting evidence and tracking down those responsible, while DHS is in charge of “asset” response, offering technical assistance to prevent further damage.
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