How the FBI Is Taking Aim at Expanding Cyber Threats

America’s expanding digital infrastructure has rapidly become its soft digital underbelly. One doesn’t have to look far to see the cyber-related dangers posed by an increasingly interconnected world: The massive SolarWinds hack exploited a trusted supply chain, zero-day exploits used by Chinese hacking group Hafnium co-opted Microsoft Exchange servers worldwide, and recently Russia launched a large scale cyberattack against Ukrainian government websites in what might just be a prelude to war.

Perhaps no U.S. law enforcement agency better understands the economic and security threats these events pose to the nation than the FBI. In January the FBI published an alert warning the cybercriminal group “FIN7” is mailing packages containing counterfeit USB sticks to organizations in order to co-opt business and government networks. 

What makes these attacks so nefarious is the packages appear legitimate: They are typically delivered by the U.S. Postal Service or United Parcel Service and contain letters imitating either Amazon (with a fraudulent thank you letter, gift card, and USB) or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (with a letter referencing COVID-19 protocols and, again, a USB). If the recipient plugs the USB into their computer, the drive surreptitiously injects keystrokes behind the scenes to download and run malware, opening the computer up to even greater vulnerabilities. 

To address this increasingly dangerous and sophisticated technological reality, the FBI is investing heavily to become the world’s leading cyber authority for law enforcement actions, building a new cybersecurity and analytics center of excellence located in Huntsville, Alabama. 

In an October speech, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, “cyber is one of the FBI’s highest priorities” because criminals “cause real-world harm, threatening national security, our economic vitality, and public health and safety.” He also stated the FBI’s strategy centers on prevention and disruption, a challenging proposition, since cyber threats represent persistent actors from a wide variety of sources, spanning from nation-states to hacktivists, solo actors, and everything in between. 

The FBI’s new Huntsville location is a critical step toward enabling its digitally secure future, providing the bureau with a cyber innovation center that produces agents with world-class training, technical expertise, and cutting-edge resources. The center also offers an opportunity to consolidate a sprawling national capital region footprint to better align resources, share information, and streamline operations.

Widely recognized as part of the “Silicon Valley of the South,” Huntsville is an ideal choice, located in a region with rapidly growing startups, and heavy investments in the space and automobile industries. Alabama is also making significant investments in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in its colleges and universities, producing the tech talent needed to fuel the next generation of technology and decision science advancements. Access to this diverse and talented employee base, and a desire to work more closely alongside its clients, led Booz Allen to create an innovation center at the historic Stovehouse. 

Our background in remote, secure, and classified work is a perfect fit as various law enforcement and national security agencies implement new tools to empower their workforces. Federal agencies are geographically distributed, with employees typically spread across every state, U.S. territory, and in allied and partner nations. Our deep expertise in zero trust architecture and partnerships with Department of Defense clients—including Air Force with “Platform One”—enables Booz Allen to put to work for these agencies the technology and expertise we’ve successfully employed for other national security clients, enhancing their security posture while enabling modern software development. 

While transformation is challenging for any organization, it’s not altogether new for the FBI. The bureau has undertaken numerous transformations throughout its 114-year history: fighting major crime, pursuing espionage cases, and, beginning in the 1980s, investigating and apprehending terrorists. Most notably, the FBI undertook its greatest transformation following the September 11 attacks to become a proactive, intelligence-driven organization. Now the FBI is embarking upon an important shift to become a digitally savvy organization and the global leader for law enforcement when it comes to cyber.

In fact, the FBI’s core elements for its ongoing transformation look a lot like our own concept of a 3D workforce. To be successful, the bureau’s future needs to be digital, distributed, and diverse.

A digitally enabled workforce extends far beyond cyber expertise. It includes developing secure networks, implementing cloud-based solutions, and educating the existing workforce with tools increasingly powered by artificial intelligence and other foundational technologies. As the U.S. government’s largest provider of AI services, we are well equipped to assist the FBI on its journey, bringing our deep knowledge and broad awareness of the best capabilities from a wide variety of vendors.

These technologies will naturally assist the FBI, as well as its domestic and international law enforcement and intelligence partners. No single agency can possibly hope to identify, disrupt, and prosecute every actor in cyberspace by themselves. The FBI, taking a lead role in distributed intelligence gathering and information sharing, however, can quickly become a key force multiplier for the nation’s allies and partners pursuing cybercriminals around the globe.

Finally, the FBI is aware of the need to diversify to maintain trust with the American public. When two agents knock on a door, do they represent the neighborhood’s background? Ensuring racial and cultural diversity will help to understand cultural sensitivities and norms, whether engaging directly with citizens or developing and working with sources. Moreover, agents who bring additional diversity beyond race, gender, and ethnicity—extending into background, skills, and ideas—are better able to contribute to the solutions needed for tough, fast-moving global challenges.

For FBI agents serving the nation, their mission remains simple: to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States. 

Booz Allen employees have a responsibility to build trusted relationships with our clients, bringing the requisite knowledge and expertise needed to identify and classify cybercrimes and malicious actors, engaging in cyber network defense (CND) and cyber network exploitation (CNE), and sharing best practices to facilitate policy communications between federal agencies, the White House, and industry. 

Fielding a digitally enabled, distributed, and diverse force—a 3D workforce—is a significant step toward the FBI achieving its goal to be recognized as the global leader in cyber capabilities. Booz Allen is proud to be a world leader in the technologies and expertise required to elevate federal workforces to the next level.