Former FBI Cybercrime Top Cop Joins Startup That Targets The Attacker
Shawn Henry now heading up services arm of CrowdStrike, the semi-stealth startup that plans to more aggressively profile, target, and, ultimately, help unmask sophisticated cyberattackers
The toughest part about fighting cybercrime is actually catching the people behind the botnet, financial fraud, or cyberespionage. Just ask the former executive assistant director of the FBIs Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, Shawn Henry, who late last month retired from the bureau after 24 years and today announced that he has joined startup CrowdStrike to continue the fight from the private sector.
Henry, the newly named president of CrowdStrikes Services division, says the static strategy of building a bigger wall isnt working against todays cybercriminals. CrowdStrike, which thus far has kept much of its strategy in stealth mode, is focusing on the bad actors behind targeted attacks, whether they are nation/state-sponsored hackers or financially motivated organized cybercriminals.
If you profile the adversary and know what hes targeting, that allows you as the owner of the data to make strategic decisions on what to put on the network and how to store it. If you have a better understanding of them, that provides you with more granularity in your network defense and protecting your intellectual property, Henry says.
The ultimate goal is removing those bad actors. From a law enforcement perspective, we have taken a couple hundred of those people out of play. Each was involved actively in breaching networks, and they are not doing that anymore, Henry says. Its a multipronged approach: There needs to be defense, but for so long thats all weve been doing. There hasnt been any offense.
So what is a legitimate and legal offense by the private sector? Its not just sitting back on your heels and trying to deflect the punches, Henry says. It might be the way you move, it might be the sharing of intelligence with federal agencies or other companies. There are some deceptive tactics you can utilize that create challenges for the adversary. Its a whole host of things.
Henry says CrowdStrikes strategy is to help identify the bad guys and make it more expensive for them to operate. The company obviously wont cross any U.S. legal boundaries in their efforts, he says, and has no plans to hack the attackers.
[Financially driven cybercriminals are also using advanced persistent threat (APT) methods for longer staying power in order to increase their spoils. See
APT-Type Attack A Moving Target
. ]
CrowdStrike
was co-founded by former McAfee executives George Kurtz, now president and CEO of the startup, and Dmitri Alperovitch, now CTO of CrowdStrike. Kurtz and Alperovitch first announced the company in February at the RSA Conference,
where they demonstrated how advanced persistent threat (APT) attackers could use mobile devices to commit cyberespionage
.
Alperovitch said he and Kurtz had become frustrated with the industrys continued approach of focusing on malware instead of the attacker -- the human behind the malware. Thats like looking at a gun or bullet as opposed to the shooter, he said in an interview during RSA. We have an adversary problem, not a malware problem. The tools and exploits all change.
Big Data And Better Intel
CrowdStrike is building technology to automate the discovery of attributes, behaviors, and techniques of attackers using big data.
Henry says when he got the call from Kurtz after his retirement from the FBI in late March, he hadnt been looking for a new gig yet. I have been talking for years as an agent about the need for the private sector to move into that space and to help companies become more secure. [CrowdStrike] was intriguing to me, he says.
He says he thinks his expertise and insight from the law enforcement side can help. What Im aware of and have learned Ill be bringing to them, specifically [from] the past five years, and not breaching any classified information, he says.
Gathering more intelligence on an attack is the new mantra within the security industry, especially given
the more fatalistic perspective
growing among security experts, vendors such as CrowdStrike, and businesses that the bad guys are likely already inside. So you need to know more about what theyre trying to do
to minimize the damage
.
There is certainly a trend forming around understanding the threat, its methods and techniques, its preferences and limitations, and its vulnerabilities of choice that they like to exploit: They are also human after all, says Jacques Remi Francoeur, founder and executive director of the Union of Concerned Cybersecurity Leaders. Then you dynamically align your security measures toward the anticipated or more likely points and methods of attack.
But catching the bad guys isnt as simple as it sounds, he says. Who is the customer for that? That is law enforcements responsibility. Also, even if you put one behind bars, there are 10 [more] to take their place, Francoeur says. It seems like we are headed down the same path as the measures against the drug trade. Billions spent with virtually no impact [on] the trade. However, without a deterrence, the problem would become rapidly much larger.
CrowdStrikes Henry says he envisions the approach taken by CrowdStrike will help catch some actual botmasters, cybercriminals, and cyberespionage actors. I think we have to push the envelope a bit, but absolutely stay within the borders of the law, he says. Theres more were able to do, and we will work with our attorneys to ensure its handled properly, he says.
Henry will oversee CrowdStrikes initial offerings, which include incident response services, enterprise adversary and malware assessment, and response and recovery.
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Former FBI Cybercrime Top Cop Joins Startup That Targets The Attacker