The FBI has formed a new cybercrime task force with the New York Police Department and the Metropolitan Transit Authority whose job will be to go after high-level financial cyber crimes, employing a model of interagency cooperation that the bureau and other federal law enforcement agencies have used with notable success in other areas.
The new Financial Cyber Crimes Task Force will give members access to all of the FBI’s training and investigative resources and is meant to go after perhaps the most damaging and widespread portion of the cybercrime landscape. Financial crimes are the heart of the cybercrime empire and comprise dozens of different kinds of crimes, from simple credit card theft and fraud to highly sophisticated attacks on payment processors and high-frequency trading platforms. The FBI, along with the Secret Service, has been at the forefront of combating cybercrime since the beginning and have had their hands full, and the new task force will give them some help and spread the FBI’s resources to other agencies.
“The task force model that has been successfully employed in response to bank robbery and terrorism cases is now being applied to the cyber realm. The FBI continues to develop positive working relationships with our fellow law enforcement officers in our joint efforts to tackle criminal activity, and we look forward to working with our partners at the NYPD and MTA to combat cyber crime,” said FBI Assistant Director George Venizelos.
New York City is the capital of the financial services industry in the United States and the companies based there are among the top targets for attackers. Hedge funds, brokerage houses, banks, trust companies and the myriad smaller firms that support and feed off them all are hammered on a constant basis for every species of cybercriminal. Many of them have sophisticated anti-fraud and security teams, but they’re outnumbered in a big way. And even the FBI, with all of its manpower and resources, is in a dog fight when it comes to combating cybercrime, hence the need for cooperation and collaboration.
“Cyber crime knows no geographical boundaries and expands the exposure to victims literally throughout the world. This task force extends the reach of law enforcement to help identify, pursue, and prosecute those who commit cybercrime wherever they may be. The NYPD is proud to be part of this collaboration with local, federal, and international agencies, which will help combat this threat by using modern day technology,” NYPD Police Commissioner William J Bratton said.
The new task force will work out of the FBI’s New York field office and will focus on crimes in the New York area.
