Slashdot Mirror
Report Critical of FBI Cybercrime-Fighting Ability
coondoggie writes "Despite a push to bulk up its security expertise, the FBI in some case lacks the skills to properly investigate national security intrusions. That was one of the major conclusions found in the US Department of Justice inspector general audit of the FBI's ability to address national security cyberthreats today. The DOJ looked at 10 of the 56 FBI field offices and interviewed 36 agents. Of those interviewed, 13 'lacked the networking and counterintelligence expertise to investigate national security intrusion cases.'"
And why would anyone take a job at the FBI if they can work in the private sector?
So 23 had the networking and counterintelligence expertise to investigate national security intrusion cases. Sounds pretty darned good to me.
So... on one side FBI don't have the skills to investigate intrusion, on the other side we should trust them enough to allow remote uninstalling the CoreBoot trojan, eh?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Funny, investigating external intrusions just feels like something I'd expect the CIA or NSA to be handling instead.
Now that the Chinese have caught up to us in 1s and 0s it's time to move on to the much safer YOLD (Yodeling Over Long Distance) model of data transfer.
The Slashdot story misreports the data, as usual. The actual report says that 36% of the agents who were assigned to national security related cyber investigations self-reported that they did not have the necessary expertise for the job they were doing.
And those are the national-security related cases, which the FBI considers to be the most important category. It's probably worse at the regular computer-related crime level.
They're trying. The FBI actually runs agents through "A+" training, and "Linux for Law Enforcement". After 5 years as an FBI agent on the "cyber" side, agents should be able to configure a Linux kernel and have an in-depth knowledge of the Windows registry. Those agents also have to learn all the regular FBI agent skills.
The report points out that 41% of the FBI's "cyber" force is tied up investigating child pornography, while only 4% work on Internet fraud. That's why they're doing so badly on online crime.
True, the FBI appear to be doing their Cybecrime fighting well, keeping the government safe against whistlblowers. They usually get their man too.
Having worked with a few Special Agents to break an international paedophile ring a few years ago, I can say from experience, the F.B.I have very few agents well equipped and extremely clued up. I was lucky to get in touch with the right special agents, although I hit a complete brick wall beforehand with agents who's mission in life was "COFEE and donuts" excuse the cofee joke http://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/solutions/cofee/default.aspx
The same is of Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police, who have people in IT that are complete idiots. At the end of this investigation, I only got a thank you off one senior special agent and Scotland Yard just completely blanked me. The officers from the Metropolitan Police decided to take all the credit for my hard work.
If it was not for Special Agent Daniels, my faith in helping out as a hacker would have been eroded many years ago.
All cows eat grass!
3-5 years is the expected time it takes for someone to be getting their Network+ Certification and SANS 401? You've got to be kidding me. That training plan ought to be way tougher than that otherwise they're going to have a tough time. All those BullShit+ courses should either be dropped or taught while the agent is still in training. Then, they need to get some sound fundamentals in programming, forensics, and intrusion detection. And, they need to be tested on that stuff or dropped from the program. And, since it is hard to find qualified people these agents ought to be rewarded with extra money but only if they are performing at a high level.
Perhaps they should take some hints from the agents who took down Coreflood also, it seems like they got it right. Oh, and fire all of the DHS ICE assholes.
I have to wonder if the FBI is not going to be doomed before they begin this mission....my logic goes like this:
The [insert foreign country who wants to hurt us] decides to launch an attack...whom do they recruit, anyone they want! Why? Well if this is not an outright illegal task, it is certainly questionable....so why not hire the least ethical, most experienced, most vicious cracker (not hacker) you can? Throw these guys in a dark room with the best gaming machines you can find, feed them coke, chips, and whatever they want (just get them laid, even!) and let them have at it doing what they love - causing Mayhem(tm). (Sounds better than working for Google)
Now the FBI wants to defend against that, so whom do they hire? The squeaky clean kid who can pass the myriad of tests and background screening (and who has no criminal record), sit through endless lecture, run an X min mile, and do Y pushups in 2 min, and can go out and physically arrest someone. Force them into a shirt and tie, make them sit through inummerable meetings and updates on the need to fill out their time card properly, sexual harrassment awareness, oh, and "we're charging you more for your HMO next month....AND we need that status report on child porn....YESTERDAY" Add to this that most of their actions must be "above board".
Its like a vanilla military trying to fight in guerrilla warfare....they're going to get creamed. I just see the model as being fundamentally broken
5 years to learn to reconfigure a linux kernel?! By reconfigure you mean compile? It shouldn't take more than a week to learn to compile a linux kernel if that.
Also wouldn't they need to focus more on forensics than compiling linux kernels?
A few years ago, someone cracked my wife's VOIP account and was using it to run a phishing-type bank scam. They were less than sophisticated in their methods, and with the help of the admins at the ISP from which the attack was coming, we quickly tracked down the source. The admin agreed to leave things in place long enough for me to contact the FBI. This I did, explaining that the attack was in progress "right now" and we had copious information that would make law enforcement action a no-brainer. Again, I reported an in-progress banking scam to the FBI. What I got from them was a promise that an agent would call me the next day. That's it. She didn't, and the other admin and I did what we could (precious little) to prevent more crime. Maybe the call-taker didn't understand the issue and it's immediacy. That's a problem in and of itself, and rather supports TFA's premise. Whatever the case, the message was loud and clear. Federal law enforcement does not pay attention to "the little people". Maybe it's indifference, or may be it's technical incompetence. It is definitelty fail.
Most Cyber Crime agents make $80,000-130,000 doing what exactly? ,or die, what difference would that make?
And considering it is dangerous, what is the life expectancy? And finally what is the median income in the first year, sure they can make $80,000 within 3 years but if most don't last for 3 years because they quit, get fired
Otherwise if they get $80,000, it wont be hard to find recruits. They can go to any college in America and offer $80,000 a year and most people would take it. So I don't see why they can't find skilled agents in IT.
FBI is government, government only gets money if there is a problem to fix. If they reported they were the best in the world, their funding would get cut and they wouldn't be able to sustain. The more critical findings are of the state of something in government, the more money is thrown it's way.
It's a fair question to ask why someone highly educated would join the military, but it's not the same thing unless the FBI offers the same benefits, GI Bill, etc.
Let's remember the FBI does not have the cool reputation, while the military still does. This is because the military is not running tanks through the streets of LA, but the FBI is fighting the war on drugs in LA.
FBI are considered civilians even if they are used as warriors. But yeah it is a fair question