U.S. Will Enlarge Its Computer Threat Team

The Justice Department, seeking a partnership of government agencies and private enterprise, will expand efforts to deter and detect attacks on the nation’s computer-dependent financial, energy, transportation, water and telecommunication systems.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno will announce today that the FBI is creating a National Infrastructure Protection Center at its headquarters. It is to be staffed by the FBI, other government agencies and representatives of the threatened sectors.

The announcement, to be made at the University of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is in response to a presidential commission’s warning last October that the U.S. infrastructure is at serious risk, suffering from lack of an effective warning system and failure by government and industry to share information.

The announcement also follows reports earlier this week that the Pentagon’s computer networks recently were targeted for what one official called “the most organized and systematic attack” ever by computer hackers.

“Every month our society becomes more and more reliant on telecommunications and information technologies,” said Michael A. Vatis, a former associate attorney general who recently moved to the FBI and will head the new center. “Consequently, we’ve become more vulnerable to people who want to use the technologies for illicit financial gain, for carrying out a terrorist plot by shutting down or denying service or by accessing proprietary data.”

The center, which will fold in an existing but smaller and more limited FBI unit, will emphasize active measures to prevent computer and physical attacks on the infrastructure, rather than merely investigating and responding to attacks and intrusions after they occur, Vatis said.

The other major shift in approach will be the direct involvement of other government agencies, such as the Treasury Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence community, as well as at least one private-sector representative from what are deemed to be critical infrastructures.

These include telecommunications, transportation, banking and finance, electrical energy, gas and oil supply and delivery, emergency services and water supply.

Ken Geide, a career FBI official who headed the former FBI center and who will direct computer investigations and serve as Vatis’ deputy, cited a prototype for the cooperative effort developed in the FBI’s Cleveland office.

Called Infraguard, it involves the private sector. For example, a bank might alert the FBI with two reports to what it suspects is a computer theft threat. One is a full description and the other is edited to protect the bank’s proprietary information. The information is encrypted and the FBI then disseminates the shortened version to other members of the system to help determine the vulnerability of the institution and characteristics of the threat.

The program started with about 34 companies last year “and we’re optimistic about it,” Geide said.

Reno, in making the announcement, will note that Congress has been asked to provide $64 million in increased funding for the expanded effort in fiscal 1999. The additional funds would support the new center, allow the FBI to create six additional computer investigation and infrastructure threat assessment squads around the country and provide for additional prosecutors to handle computer crimes. A Justice Department official said that the funding is relatively modest because the idea for the new center “came up late in the budget cycle.”

The FBI’s former center had funds for a staff of 69, according to Geide. The expanded center will include 85 people from the FBI and about 40 people from other government agencies and private industry, he said. The FBI operates regional computer investigation threat assessment squads in seven of its 49 field offices, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington, Chicago, Boston and Dallas. Their workload over the last year has grown fivefold--from 100 investigations to 500.

A Justice Department official acknowledged that having Defense and intelligence personnel working on domestic law enforcement with the FBI in the new center is likely to raise questions about the propriety of their involvement. Critics, for instance, might express concerns that the center could allow the military to become involved in investigations of radical political organizations.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that this concern would be met by all those working in the center having to operate under authorities and restrictions that apply to FBI agents. The center “will have to make sure that everyone understands what the rules are,” the official said.