FBI takes aim at cyber crime infrastructure

FBI Director Christopher 雷 at the fourth annual Boston Conference on Cyber Security, held at 电子游戏软件 this month. (Photos by Lee Pellegrini)

“We don’t want to just keep the cyber criminals at bay, we want to burn down their infrastructure,” 联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·A. 雷 told an audience of several hundred cybersecurity experts gathered at 电子游戏软件 on March 4, in an address that focused on the comprehensive, 创新, and broadly 协作 approach needed to combat an increasingly complex and widespread threat.

雷 delivered the keynote address at the fourth annual Boston Conference on Cyber Security, 基底细胞癌2020, organized through a partnership between the FBI and the M.S. in Cybersecurity and Governance Program of BC's Woods College of Advancing Studies to seek better ways to defend against these invasive cyber threats and respond to the vulnerability of U.S. 信息系统.

Cyber crime continues to grow in scope, 复杂性, 和复杂性, 雷对与会者说, and its impact has deepened, making it a powerful weapon for a range of “threat actors,” from multi-national cyber syndicates to nation-state adversaries.

“We can’t just fight this threat one by one: One bad guy at a time, 一次一个辛迪加, one victim company at a time,他说. “We’ve got to tackle the cyber threat as a whole, 运用我们的能力, 我们的情报, and our partnerships to their full extent."

雷's remarks to the capacity crowd in Gasson Hall focused on the cyber threat writ large, and the spectrum of ways in which the FBI addresses it.

Concerns he cited include a wider-than-ever gamut of methods continually employed in new ways…like the targeting of MSPs—managed service providers—as a way to access scores of victims by hacking just one provider, a technique pioneered in China but now used by criminal hackers.

除了, 他说, "we face the increasingly blended threat of state-sponsored economic espionage facilitated by cyber intrusions. 更甚于以往, our adversaries’ targets are our nation’s core economic assets—our information and ideas, 我们的创新, our research and 开发ment, 我们的技术."

No nation poses a broader, more severe threat to those assets than the Chinese government, 他说. "They’re not just targeting 公司 related to our defense industry, they’re targeting 公司 producing everything from proprietary rice seeds to software for wind turbines to high-end medical devices. And they’re not just targeting innovation and R&D—they’re going after cost and pricing information, internal strategy documents...anything that can give them a competitive advantage.”

Nation-state threats from China, 俄罗斯, 伊朗, North Korea and others also include efforts to obtain controlled defense technology and 开发 the ability to use cyber means to complement any future real-world conflict. But as dangerous as nation-states are, 说雷, the threat also comes from increasingly sophisticated criminal groups, with hackers on a level previously only seen among government operatives.

Befitting the scope of the danger, the U.S. deploys a whole cyber ecosystem against it—and in cross-cutting 执法 and national security authorities, the FBI is at the center of it, 雷说, citing as an example its work in the 2018 SamSam Ransomware indictment.

"SamSam was sophisticated malicious software used to hack into the networks of hospitals, 学校, 公司, 政府机构, and a number of other entities, and to encrypt their computers. There were more than 200 victims—including the City of Atlanta, 圣地亚哥港, 和MedStar 健康.

"To identify the actors, we needed more than just our own 情报. We needed information from victims across the country, and 情报 and investigative information from foreign partners and private sector entities who were also tracking SamSam. With all those pieces of the puzzle, we were able to attribute the attack to two 伊朗ians.

"More puzzle pieces helped us determine the actors were working for personal profit, rather than on behalf of the 伊朗ian government. [The Department of Justice] unsealed an indictment in November 2018. And the investigation also enabled the Treasury Department to issue sanctions against two bitcoin exchangers, and for the first time warn the private sector about some of the criminals’ virtual currency addresses.

"Since the indictment and sanctions, we haven’t seen any SamSam activity. Partnerships are what made all of this possible," 雷说.

Today's threats are too diverse, 太危险, and too all-encompassing for any agency to tackle alone, 他说. "We’ve got to figure out how we can match strengths...that's the essence of the most effective partnerships.

"People should be able to say 'there’s no better partner' than the FBI," 雷说.

The themes emphasized in the FBI director's keynote address—the importance of partnerships across fields and disciplines, 分享创新, 情报, and expertise—were reflected in remarks and breakout sessions throughout 基底细胞癌2020. Inaugurated in 2017 to encourage just this sort of collaboration, 年会, 说雷, "has become one of the most unique gatherings of voices, 思想家, and 政策 makers in the cyber realm. It’s one we’re really proud to be a part of at the FBI.”

雷's remarks were followed by speakers including Mike Cote, president and CEO of SecureWorks; Helen Dixon, Ireland's commissioner for data protection;  and John C. Demers U.S. assistant attorney general for national security. Panel discussions focused on emerging technologies, 操作, 执行, as well as actual cyber and national security experiences related to risk, 合规, 政策, 威胁的趋势, 准备, 弹性, 防御策略.

Cybersecurity specialists participating in 基底细胞癌2020 included other FBI representatives as well as experts from the U.S. departments of Defense and Justice, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 美国银行, 思科系统公司, Data Protection Commission-Ireland, Eversource, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 脸谱网, FireEye, 谷歌, IBM的安全, 众达国际法律事务所, 微软, 利宝互助保险, 麻萨诸塞州 Port Authority, 明茨莱文, 国家电网, 甲骨文, 雷神公司, 和SecureWorks, 等.

基底细胞癌2020 co-organizer 凯文·R. 权力, founding director of the 电子游戏软件 M.S. in Cybersecurity Policy and Governance Program, served as master of ceremonies for the event with FBI Boston Division Special Agent Doug Domin, head of the cyber crime program, 乔安娜·巴尔特斯, curriculum coordinator of BC's M.S. 在网络安全项目中.

会议联合主席, Woods College Dean Karen Muncaster and FBI Boston Division Special Agent in Charge 约瑟夫·R. Bonavolonta, as well as 电子游戏软件 Executive Vice President Michael Lochhead, also offered welcoming remarks.