Justice Department Hosts Cybersecurity Industry Event

The U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division hosted a cybersecurity roundtable discussion Friday on the challenges in handling data breach investigations. Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Criminal Division delivered opening remarks and served as moderator for the event.

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers of the Department’s National Security Division and officials from the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, the White House’s National Security Council and U.S. Department of Homeland Security also delivered remarks at the event.

The audience included many of the nation’s leading private-sector practitioners in the field of data breach response and representatives from premier cybersecurity and incident response firms in the country.

In February of this year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions established a Cyber-Digital Task Force, which published its first report in July. The report provides a comprehensive assessment of the cyber-enabled threats confronting the nation, and catalogs ways in which the Justice Department combats those threats, including by partnering with the private sector.

“Public-private partnerships addressing cybercrime play a critical role in our efforts to hold criminals accountable for data breaches,” said Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.

As part of the event, the Cybersecurity Unit released a new document providing even more comprehensive guidance that reflects input the Unit received during its outreach efforts. The revised guidance addresses new issues like working with incident response firms, cloud computing, ransomware, and information sharing.

According to the Justice Department, it is an example of the type of assistance that the Cybersecurity Unit was designed to provide—to help elevate cybersecurity efforts and build better channels of communication between law enforcement and industry.

Photo courtesy: Justice Department