WASHINGTON – The Internet is arguably the most significant technological development of our time. It has changed the way we communicate, the way we learn, and the way we see things. It brings previously isolated and disparate information to our fingertips, almost instantaneously, and has become the primary means by which we conduct business and share and store data. Speed and ubiquity, however, those very characteristics that endear us to the technology, leave us vulnerable to attack from hostile foreign powers, terrorist sympathizers, and criminal hackers. Indeed, the information networks that run America are under attack from adversaries around the globe.
The threat is real, and it is growing. Foreign Intelligence Services have stolen military strategy and technology, our corporate intellectual property, and the research and development conducted at our universities – information we have spent years and billions of dollars developing. Organized crime groups, which historically muscled citizens in the streets, have migrated their criminal activities to the internet and steal tens of millions of dollars from our financial institutions and consumers. Terrorist groups and those sympathetic to the jihadi cause actively seek to impact our society via cyber attack in the same way their kinetic attacks have.
The challenges are many, though the FBI�??s Cyber Division has gained some ground recently. We have implemented a Cyber Career Path Program, whereby information technology specialists are specifically recruited and hired to be career cyber agents, who can �??hit the ground running, and are provided enhanced cyber training throughout their career. Additionally, we have employed hundreds of intelligence analysts to work side-by-side with those agents, helping to connect the dots, to clarify the threat landscape, and to prepare valuable intelligence products for dissemination throughout the government and the private sector.
We initiated the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF), a center of peers, where FBI personnel are co-located with representatives from multiple government agencies to coordinate investigations and leverage capabilities, giving us a 10,000 foot view of threats and operations across the country. We strategically reviewed thousands of investigations and allegations to identify commonalities, enabling us to focus on the most critical threats. We have also moved from a primarily reactive posture, when we responded to intrusion incidents after the fact, to operating proactively and
infiltrating hacker groups covertly.
The intelligence we have collected in the course of our domestic operations has been shared with other government agencies and the private sector, and the dissemination of vulnerability and exploit information has actually prevented some computer intrusions (the ultimate pendulum swing…..from reactive to proactive to predictive to preventative.)
One of our most important strategies is the fostering of existing partnerships, and the continued development of new ones. We face no geographic boundaries in the cyber world, and most of our cases have an international nexus, making global cooperation vital. We have 60 Legal Attach?? offices around the world and we are actively working with our partners in Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey, and Ukraine, to name a few, to investigate international cyber threats. Further, in addition to our Legal Attach?? program, we have embedded cyber agents and analysts with the Romanian National Police in their headquarters in Bucharest. This initiative has resulted in the arrest of more than 100 individuals tied to organized cybercrime in Romania and the United States in just the last year. The success of this program has led to our agreement with three other nations to embed cyber agents in their national police agencies abroad to focus specifically on criminal hacker groups.
We are fortunate to have so many valuable partners. One partnership we are especially proud of, though, is the one we have with you. My personal experience with InfraGard goes back more than a decade, and I am intimately aware of the membership�??s storied tradition of sharing beneficial information with the FBI and each other to protect our nation. In fact, InfraGard was recently cited in the President�??s 60-day Cybersecurity review as a foundation for public-private information sharing. Two recent examples of intelligence received from InfraGard members highlight this; a suspected foreign hacking team using a zero-day exploit to hack U.S. servers, and the hacking of financial institutions using token authentication exploits.
We must continue to safeguard our systems and our data. We must continue to share intelligence. Most importantly, we must continue to stay connected. To that end, I have had many valuable discussions with the INMA board to ensure we continue to meet the needs of the InfraGard membership and the FBI. One item recently brought to my attention relates to membership cards. You should know that, while InfraGard membership recertification is currently underway, it likely will not be completed by the end of September 2009. If your membership card expires, rest assured you remain InfraGard members and may continue attending meetings and accessing the InfraGard secure web site.
I appreciate the efforts and dedication of the past board, and am encouraged by the energy and vision of the current one. I have also had the pleasure of speaking with many InfraGard members throughout the country over the years, including local leadership, and am heartened and humbled by the passion and commitment I have witnessed.
Ours is truly a relationship of counterparts. Law enforcement does not exist to police the public; it exists to work with the public to help keep everyone safe. We are all responsible for our communities, and we share common goals: creating a safer world for our children; protecting our neighborhoods and our nation from those who wish to do us harm; upholding the rule of law; and ultimately, defending the freedoms we cherish.
By standing up in your communities, you are making a critical contribution toward realizing those goals. You are reducing the number of threats we face as a nation. You are discovering previously-unknown vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. You are identifying technology to help us better respond against our adversaries.
The value of your collective work cannot be totaled. But it can be summed up by an ancient Chinese proverb recently cited by FBI Director Mueller: One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade. You are planting those trees in your communities. Your work will have an impact far into the future – an impact on the safety of our children, the stability of our cities, and the security of our nation. It is our common hope those future generations will live peacefully in the shade.
Thank you for your vision, your leadership, and your sacrifice. Thank you for your trust. Most of all, thank you for your partnership. It is my honor and privilege to serve beside you, united in common cause.
Shawn Henry, Assistant Director, FBI Cyber Division. Originally published in the InfraGard National Alliance Members Newsletter.
The InfraGard Program began in 1996 as a collaborative effort between private sector cyber professionals and the FBI field office in Cleveland, Ohio. The FBI later expanded the program to every field office in the country. In 2003 the private sector members of InfraGard formed the ―InfraGard National Members Alliance‖ (INMA). The INMA is a non-profit Delaware LLC with 501(c)3 status. The INMA LLC is comprised of 86 separate 501(c)3 InfraGard Members Alliances (IMAs) that represent over 31,000 FBI-vetted, InfraGard Subject Matter Experts. The INMA has a dual-focus value proposition. It
