SONY HACK WAS WAR says FBI, and 'we're still struggling to hire talent'

Cybercrims may be safe at home, but Feds dare them to go on holiday

International cooperation

As with its counterpart in the UK, the FBI is keen to see the NCFTA model of cooperation increased to include overseas partners, according to Wallach, who had previously been assigned as the FBI Legal Attaché at its office in Bern, Switzerland.

The FBI has 60 fully operational Legal Attaché offices and 15 sub-offices, with 165 agents and 103 support personnel assigned for a total of 268 employees stationed around the world.

Wallach, who has been with the agency for 19 years, noted that the FBI is still having difficulty recruiting talent. People who work for the FBI do so due to their belief in "the mission", he acknowledged.

A Department of Justice report into the agency earlier this year found that recruits were discouraged by the invasive recruitment processes, and better private-sector salaries.

The DoJ report found that five of the FBI's 56 field offices did not have even a single computer scientist assigned to them, which suggests the cybercrime functions of its Legal Attaché programme may be limited.

According to testimony delivered to a Senate subcommittee on the Legal Attaché programme, "[the] growth of transnational crime caused by the explosion in computer and telecommunications technology ... has made it necessary for the United States to cooperate with countries around the world concerning security issues."

Wallach also celebrated the FBI's International Cybercrime Coordination Cell (IC4), the platform from which international cooperation took down the Beebone botnet earlier this year. Such a collaboration provides "the model for international cooperation" stated Wallach. ®