Page 16 - CARAHSOFT, August 2020

The Next Wave of Cybersecurity
Executive Viewpoint
A conversation with
TONYA UGORETZ
TONYA UGORETZ
Deputy Assistant Director for the Cyber Readiness, Outreach and Intelligence Branch, FBI
An FBI cyber leader discusses how the bureau helps government and industry protect themselves from cyberthreats
What role does the FBI play in addressing cyberthreats?
The FBI has a long history of adapting to threats, starting with its creation over a hundred years ago to address interstate crime when automobiles made it easier
for criminals to move across state lines. Since then, we’ve adapted our domestic field-centric model and our global presence to bring down dangerous criminal enterprises, foil terrorist plots and disrupt rings of foreign spies. When it comes to cyber intrusions, we apply that history of innovation and investigative expertise to meet the current threat.
We see the FBI as a linchpin in combating cyberthreats because they challenge the U.S. government’s traditional approach of looking at threats as either foreign or domestic, or either criminal or national security. Cyberthreats involve both criminals and state actors typically operating from overseas and both using and compromising U.S. networks to target U.S. victims.
The FBI is in a unique position because we have an optic into parts of this entire threat ecosystem, combining
information we glean from commercial threat intelligence, our long-standing relationships with industry, our incident response and investigations, our unique domestic intelligence authorities and foreign liaison, and our analysis as part
of the Intelligence Community. We share that information and insight to improve network defense, to inform offensive operations and to help attribute malicious cyber activity to the responsible actors, which gives the U.S. government options to deter and respond.
What has the FBI observed regarding the pandemic’s impact on the cyberthreat landscape? Both cyber criminals and state actors
have been active during the pandemic, for different reasons. An increase in telework, virtual education and government relief programs and the urgent demand for research and development have all created or exacerbated vulnerabilities.
There’s a long history of criminals taking advantage of natural disasters and other crises for personal gain, and unfortunately the COVID-19 pandemic
The FBI has worked to actively disrupt cyber criminals who are attempting to profit from the pandemic.
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