Sue Gordon, former principal deputy director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Matt Olsen, Uber’s chief trust and security officer and former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, during a panel discussion at the CNBC @Work conference in San Francisco, Nov. 4, 2019.
Aaron Nevad | CNBC
US Department of Justice Announce A new division of its national security division focused on hunting down cyber threats from nation-state and state-sponsored hackers on Tuesday, formally bringing an increasingly important part of the national security agency into the Justice Department hierarchy.
Assistant Attorney General Matt Olson said in a statement that the new division will allow the Justice Department’s national security team to “scale up the scale and speed of disruptive operations and prosecute nation-state threat actors, state-sponsored cybercriminals, money launderers and other cyber threats to national security.”
The Justice Department aggressively pursues state-sponsored cyber actors, especially those in China or North Korea. National security officials outside the Justice Department have also highlighted China as a top cybersecurity concern, including the top U.S. cybersecurity official.
The announcement made no mention of China’s cyber efforts, which CISA Director Jen Easterly described last week as an “epoch-making threat.”
Concerns about corporate and industrial espionage have long been a concern for top government and business executives, especially as Chinese concerns seek to leapfrog and develop equivalent technologies, allegedly with the backing of U.S. innovation or research .
Last month, the navy secretary confirmed the navy had been “influenced” by a Chinese-backed hacking group seeking intelligence and data.
The press release does highlight the threat posed by Russian malware and ransomware groups, which Researchers and practitioners describe As powerful as an invasion from China, but less coordinated and less strategic.
Chinese hacking groups “live off the ground” collecting intelligence and data, while Russian and North Korean hacking groups often try to extort victims for profit and generate revenue for themselves or their governments.
Building a case against these groups can take years and, given the widespread nature of hacking groups, doesn’t always lead to arrests.
“NatSec Cyber will serve as an incubator able to invest in the time-consuming and complex investigative work of early-stage cases,” Olson said.