CybersecurityDOJ report finds FBI agents lacks critical cyber security skills
A recent government report found that the FBI’s cybersecurity experts are incompetent and overly focused on investigating child pornography; the study, conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ), said that many of the FBI agents trained in cyber security lacked the ability to investigate national security related intrusions and threats; out of the thirty-six agents interviewed, only 64 percent said they had the expertise to handle national security related cyber investigations; the remaining 36 percent “lacked the networking and counterintelligence expertise to investigate national security intrusion cases” ; five agents even admitted that they “did not think they were able or qualified to investigate national security intrusions effectively”
A recent government report found that the FBI’s cybersecurity experts are incompetent and overly focused on investigating child pornography.
The study, conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ), said that many of the FBI agents trained in cyber security lacked the ability to investigate national security related intrusions and threats.
Out of the thirty-six agents that DOJ interviewed, only 64 percent said they had the expertise to handle national security related cyber investigations.
The remaining 36 percent “lacked the networking and counterintelligence expertise to investigate national security intrusion cases.” Five agents even admitted that they “did not think they were able or qualified to investigate national security intrusions effectively.”
The report concluded that agents lacked adequate forensic and analytical skills to properly investigate national security cyber intrusions.
As evidence it stated, “One agent who had recently been assigned his first counterterrorism intrusion case said that he did not know how to investigate a national security intrusion case.”
“He was concerned about is ability to perform the investigation, especially because he viewed it as a significant case.”
The report comes as the number of cyber attacks against federal networks has increased dramatically.
In 2010 there were nearly 42,000 attacks against the government, a sharp increase compared to the 30,000 attacks in 2009.
According to DHS spokesman Chris Ortman, “DHS anticipates that malicious cyber activity will continue to become more common, more sophisticated and more targeted — and range from unsophisticated hackers to very technically competent intruders using state-of-the-art techniques.”
Despite this growing threat, FBI cyber investigators spend nearly twice as much time investigating child pornography as it does analyzing attacks by foreign governments meant to steal sensitive information.
In 2009 only 19 percent of cyber agents worked on national security intrusions whereas 41 percent were assigned to investigating online child porn and 31 percent were assigned to non-spy related digital crimes.
