Fenwick privacy and cybersecurity counsel Hanley Chew spoke to The Hill about the challenges that federal officials are facing in prosecuting foreign hackers who target U.S. businesses.
Chew talked about two recent cases that underscore the difficulty of prosecuting cyber criminals and state-sponsored hackers, though they were successfully indicted in both cases.
He noted that law enforcement officials have faced an uphill battle, given the difficulty of attributing attacks and gathering enough evidence for successful prosecutions. This is even more difficult when the hackers cross national boundaries and officials have to rely on other countries to obtain the necessary information to investigate and prosecute crimes.
Chew explained, “These indictments are more to make a political statement to China, Iran and other countries which either protect or sponsor hackers. It’s both a warning to the individual hacker and, to the extent that the hacker is state-sponsored, also to the country, that says that we take these matters very seriously.”
“This is definitely a growing problem both domestically and internationally. As more and more personal data is being stored online … there are likely to be more unauthorized intrusions as the targets become more tempting and the potential rewards for this activity becomes much greater,” Chew told The Hill.
The full article is available on The Hill website.