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Cyber: Cyber attacks and crimes are becoming more commonplace, more sophisticated, and more dangerous. The scope and targets of these attacks and crimes encompass the full range and scope of the FBI's national security and criminal investigative missions. Our national security secrets are regularly targeted by foreign and domestic actors; our children are targeted by sexual predators and traffickers; our citizens are targeted for fraud and identity theft; our companies are targeted for insider information; and our universities and national laboratories are targeted for their research and development.
Since 2002, the FBI has seen an 84 percent increase in the number of computer intrusions investigations opened. Hackers ' whether state sponsored, criminal enterprises, or individuals ' constantly test and probe networks, computer software, and computers to identify and exploit vulnerabilities.
Just as the FBI has transformed its counterterrorism program to deal with an evolving and adapting threat, the Bureau is enhancing its cyber program and capabilities. To counter the cyber threat, the FBI has cyber squads in each of our 56 field offices. The FBI now has more than 1,000 specially trained agents, analysts, and digital forensic examiners that run complex undercover operations and examine digital evidence. Along with 20 law enforcement and intelligence agency partners, the FBI is the executive agent of the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force. The task force operates through Threat Focus Cells'smaller groups of agents, officers, and analysts from different agencies, focused on particular threats.
In April of this year, the FBI brought down an international botnet known as Coreflood. Botnets are networks of virus-infected computers controlled remotely by an attacker. To shut down Coreflood, the FBI took control of five servers the hackers had used to infect some two million computers with malware. In an unprecedented step, after obtaining court approval, 4 we responded to the signals sent from the infected computers in the United States, and sent a command that stopped the malware, preventing harm to hundreds of thousands of users.
Over the past year, the FBI and our partners have also pursued members of Anonymous, who are alleged to have coordinated and executed distributed denial of service attacks against various Internet companies. To date, 16 individuals have been arrested and charged in more than 10 states as part of this ongoing investigation. According to the indictment, the Anonymous group referred to the DDoS attacks as Operation Avenge Assange and allegedly conducted the attacks in support of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The defendants are charged with various counts of conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer.
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities, along with our international and private sector partners, are making progress. Technological advancements and the Internet's expansion continue to provide malicious cyber actors the opportunity to harm U.S. national security and the economy. Given the consequences of such attacks, the FBI must be able to keep pace with this rapidly developing and diverse threat. |
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Name(s:) |
Robert Mueller |
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Title: |
Director |
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Agency(ies): |
FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation |
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Url: |
Url Link
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Archive: |
Archive Link
http://archive.is/tDcga |
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Title: |
Statement of Robert S. Mueller, III Director of the Federal Bureau of Information Before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies |
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Author: |
Robert Mueller, |
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Title: |
Director |
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Authoring or Creator Agency: |
FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation |
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