US Secret Service creates new Cyber Fraud Task Force

The U.S. Secret Service announced the creation of the Cyber Fraud Task Force (CFTF) after the merger of its Financial Crimes Task Forces (FCTFs) and Electronic Crimes Task Forces (ECTFs) into a single unified network.

CFTF's main goal is to investigate and defend American individuals and businesses from a wide range of cyber-enabled financial crimes, from business email compromise (BEC) scams and ransomware attacks to data breaches and the illegal sale of stolen personal information and credit cards on the Internet and the dark web.

"The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) estimates that malicious cyber activity cost the U.S. economy between $57 billion and $109 billion in 2016 alone," the Secret Service said.

"The U.S. Secret Service, through our CFTFs, stands ready to lead the collective effort in this important fight."

Focused on both cyber and traditional financial crime

Consolidating the two task forces into CFTF will allow the Secret Service to boost its agents' ability to prevent, detect, and mitigate financially-motivated cybercrime by improving coordination, sharing of resources and expertise, and best practices dissemination.

The process of merging the FCTF and ECFT started in March 2020, with the CFTF being created after two years of pilot programs, planning, and collecting feedback from a series of stakeholders and key partners, and the initiative was the direct result of the increasingly fast merging of cyber and traditional financial crimes.

The two's convergence meant that financial crime investigators can no longer "effectively pursue a financial or cybercrime investigation without understanding both the financial and Internet sectors, as well as the technologies and institutions that power each industry."

Since March, "'the CFTF model has allowed for better data sharing, institutional alliance, and investigative skill development," the Secret Service said.

"Through these efforts, the Secret Service has successfully disrupted hundreds of online COVID-19 related scams, investigated a number of cyber fraud cases, halted the illicit sales of online stolen COVID-19 test kits, prevented tens of millions of dollars in fraud from occurring, and is leading a nation-wide effort to investigate and counter a vast transnational unemployment fraud scheme targeting the U.S. state unemployment programs."

Task forces already operational in 42 CFTF offices

"The creation of the new Cyber Fraud Task Force (CFTF), will offer a specialized cadre of agents and analysts, trained in the latest analytical techniques and equipped with the most cutting-edge technologies," said Michael D’Ambrosio, U.S. Secret Service Assistant Director.

At the moment, the Secret Service has already operationalized CFTFs in 42 domestic offices and in 2 international locations (London and Rome).

The Department of Homeland Security federal law enforcement agency also plans to increase the number of CFTF locations through its network of more than 160 offices across the U.S. and around the globe.

During 2019, alone, the FCTF and ECFT networks surpassed all their investigative performance targets and were able to prevent "over $7.1 billion in potential fraud losses, a near 1000x return on taxpayer investment."

By merging the two, the Secret Service wants to make sure that its investigators can successfully defend the U.S. financial system against the growing threat of transnational financial cybercrime.

Related Articles:

Frontier Communications shuts down systems after cyberattack

Moldovan charged for operating botnet used to push ransomware

CISA makes its "Malware Next-Gen" analysis system publicly available

FBI warns of massive wave of road toll SMS phishing attacks

Ex-Amazon engineer gets 3 years for hacking crypto exchanges