Security News > 2020 > March > FBI Working to 'Burn Down' Cyber Criminals' Infrastructure
To thwart increasingly dangerous cyber criminals, law enforcement agents are working to "Burn down their infrastructure" and take out the tools that allow them to carry out their devastating attacks, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday.
Unsophisticated cyber criminals now have the power to paralyze entire hospitals, businesses and police departments, Wray said during a conference on cybersecurity at Boston College.
"The reality is we are long past the days where we can fight this threat just one by one, one bad guy at a time ... one victim company at a time. We've got to figure out ways to tackle the cyber threat as a whole," Wray told the crowd of FBI agents, university officials and others on the Chestnut Hill campus.
Foreign actors, especially those from China, are also using cyber attacks to steal research from the defense contractors and other companies to "Avoid the hard slog of innovation," Wray said, adding that the thieves are then turning around and using that information to compete against the very companies they ripped off.
Wray stressed the importance of indicting cyber criminals, even when they are outside the grasp of U.S. law enforcement in places like Russia, China or Iran, saying such criminals must be held accountable "No matter where they are."