14 DAY TRIAL // Following the discovery of multiple explosive packages sent to former US presidents Clinton and Obama, some top Democratic figures, as well as a number of Trump critics during last week, the U.S. Secret Service also detailed its role in fighting cybercrime during the "Inside the Business of Cybercrime" forum.
"The Secret Service focuses on financially motivated cyber criminals," as detailed by Secret Service Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge (ATSAIC) Matthew O’Neill.
"In particular, we are focused on the business email compromise totaling roughly $12 billion in the past few years – U.S. funds going overseas through the compromise of business emails and personal email accounts."
As reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on July 12, the exposed dollar loss reached a staggering $12,536,948,299 between October 2013 and May 2018, with 41,058 US victims and 2,565 non-US in total.
Furthermore, ATSAIC O'Neill also disclosed that during the last two years, U.S. real estate businesses went through an increasing number of email compromise security incidents, with a total increase of up to 1100% since 2016.
In his speech at the "Inside the Business of Cybercrime" forum, ATSAIC O’Neill also stated (.PDF) that the types of cybercrimes the Secret Service is investigating on a daily basis now range from phishing and sim swapping to more severe crimes such as scam initial coin offerings to theft of virtual currency.
Secret Service also confirmed cybersecurity co-operation with multiple national and international law enforcement agencies
The Secret Service is also working closely with other local and international law enforcement agencies to combat cyber crimes, with the National Crime Agency, the Europol, the Department of Justice’s Computer Crimes Intellectual Property Section, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service being just some of them.
"We provide them with IP addresses and other data, and they reach out to their partners overseas. The world of “cyber investigator” is fairly small. Really good cooperation stems from interpersonal relationships – longstanding interpersonal relationships that you develop by working cases," also said O'Neill.
"As we move forward, the Secret Service has imbedded people overseas and the FBI does it as well, so we can foster that collaborative effort."
During his forum speech, ATSAIC O’Neill also emphasized the importance of businesses having a security plan in place before security breaches happen given that threat actors will most likely attempt to compromise any Internet-facing systems if they think they have something to gain from it.