On Tuesday, October 23rd, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a Forum entitled, “Inside the Business of Cybercrime” in which Secret Service Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge Matthew O’Neill discussed information about the Secret Service’s investigative mission in combatting cybercrime. According to ATSAIC O’Neill, the manager of the Secret Service’s Global Investigative Operations Center, “The Secret Service focuses on financially motivated cyber criminals. In particular, we are focused on the business email compromise totaling roughly $12 billion in the past few years – U.S. funds going overseas through the compromise of business emails and personal email accounts,” says ATSAIC O’Neill.
The Business Email Compromise, or “BEC” for short, can potentially impact any consumer. ATSAIC O’Neill explains, “It could be as simple as someone closing on a mortgage. The person is closing on their mortgage and they are supposed to send their closing costs to the lender. Someone intercepts that communication and diverts the funds elsewhere. It may not be found out until the homebuyer shows up to closing. The lender then discloses they never received the funds. By that time the funds are in an account overseas and the money is gone. Real estate business email compromises are up 1100 percent over the last 2 years.”
Most Americans appreciate the convenience of technological advancement, however, it has also brought with it new opportunities for criminals. According to ATSAIC O’Neill, there are a variety of crimes evolving in cyberspace. “We are seeing initial coin offering scams, theft of virtual currency, phishing, sim swapping. Bad actors are taking full advantage of that. We get cases like these on a daily basis.”
Because of the transnational nature of cyber crime, the Secret Service works closely with many organizations to combat these criminal activities. “We work on a daily basis with our partners at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, the Postal Inspection Service, Europol, the National Crime Agency and the Department of Justice’s Computer Crimes Intellectual Property Section. We provide them with IP addresses and other data, and they reach out to their partners overseas. The world of “cyber investigator” is fairly small. Really good cooperation stems from interpersonal relationships – longstanding interpersonal relationships that you develop by working cases. As we move forward, the Secret Service has imbedded people overseas and the FBI does it as well, so we can foster that collaborative effort,” says ATSAIC O’Neill.
In addition to professional cooperation, ATSAIC O’Neill explains that outreach to the consumer and the business industry is key to the battle in cyberspace. “The Secret Service encourages businesses to have a security plan in place, not after it happens, but BEFORE it happens. Know your local Secret Service agent, know your local FBI agent. Build that into your security posture. Bad actors are constantly trying to get into anywhere that has anything of value.
If you establish your security posture, you will already be a step up,” says ATSAIC O’Neill.
-- United States Secret Service