Fergie's Tech Blog

U.S.Government Falling Short On Cyber Crime

Dennis Fisher writes on SearchSecurity.com:

The federal government is falling farther and farther behind its fight against cybercrime and, despite an increase in the amount of resources being allocated to address the problem, it will continue to struggle without a lot of help from law enforcement agencies at the state, local and international levels, current and former government security officials say.

Currently, the vast majority of the work being done on cybercrime and national computer security issues is done at the federal level by agencies as diverse as the FBI, Treasury Department, Department of Homeland Security and Department of State. And while these agencies all have teams of highly trained security professionals, the sheer volume of investigations that they're asked either to run or assist with far outweighs the amount of time, money and personnel available.

Jerry Dixon, former executive director of the National Cyber Security Division at DHS and current vice president for government relations for Infragard's National Member Alliance, said in a keynote speech at the Black Hat D.C. conference here Wednesday that the only way to help stem this tide is with a big shift in the way that lower-level law enforcement agencies deal with computer security cases.

"We need more trained law enforcement personnel at the state and local level," he said. "The feds are swamped. We need a tiered approach."

posted by Fergie @ 2/20/2008 12:59:00 PM