The U.S. government has announced a new unit that is dedicated to prosecuting nation-state threat actors and cybercriminals with the aim of more quickly disrupting the overall threat ecosystem.
Over the past year, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced several charges, sanctions and disruptions targeting cybercriminals behind ransomware attacks, state-sponsored activity and more. The new National Security Cyber Section (NatSec Cyber), carved out within the DoJ’s National Security Division and led by Sean Newell, currently senior counsel to the Deputy Attorney General within the DoJ, would add more “horsepower and organizational structure” needed to support these investigations, said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen.
“NatSec Cyber prosecutors will be positioned to act quickly, as soon as the FBI or an IC partner identifies a cyber-enabled threat, and to support investigations and disruptions from the earliest stages,” said Olsen in a Tuesday announcement of the unit.
A team of prosecutors fully dedicated to national security cybercriminal cases, which has the ability to move quickly and collaborate with different agencies across the government, will be key to NatSec Cyber’s success. Previous cases by the DoJ that have involved dismantling botnets, seizing illicit cryptocurrency funds from North Korean hackers and neutralizing Turla’s Snake intrusion tool have been fast paced and included technical and often classified information.
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