FBI Looks for Cyber Agents

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The FBI has posted job openings for Special Agent (Cyber), a sign that the law enforcement agency may more aggressively try to counter current cyberattacks and ones that definitely will happen in the future. Perhaps the recent disaster at Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) and possible threats to the federal government have spurred the agency to increase its ability to thwart what has become a wildly growing and severe problem.

There is a mixed perception about whether Washington has done everything it can to prevent attacks from enemies such as North Korea and potential attacks from organizations, particularly ISIS. It is presumed that, while small countries and terrorist groups cannot create these menaces on their own, they can recruit experts who can.

Recent reports point to a failure of the federal government’s ability to combat the most sophisticated cyberattacks. According to the Guardian:

A $10bn-a-year effort to protect sensitive government data, from military secrets to social security numbers, is struggling to keep pace with an increasing number of cyberattacks and is unwittingly being undermined by federal employees and contractors.

Also:

At a time when intelligence officials say cybersecurity trumps terrorism as the No1 threat to the US – and when breaches at businesses such as Home Depot and Target focus attention on data security – the federal government isn’t required to publicize its own data losses.

Perhaps this lack of disclosure is because the government has done such a poor job defending both itself and U.S. companies.

The attacks from cyber-criminals have not only increased significantly, they have become a frightening part of everyday news. At least U.S. citizens and companies know how dangerous the trouble is. The FBI job posting is a small sign that the issue has become so severe that the government has decided it must take its defense efforts much more seriously. It might work, unless the work is too little too late.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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