The U.S. Department of Justice has created a new unit that will focus on prosecuting malicious foreign cyber attacks on the U.S. and U.S. businesses. The new National Security Cyber Section will boast prosecutors who are “positioned to act quickly as soon as the FBI or an [intelligence community] partner identifies a cyber enabled threat and we will be in a position to support investigations and disruption,” he added, noting the effort is in its “earliest stages.”

The Justice Department today calls the new National Security Cyber Section NatSec Cyber – within its National Security Division. The newly established litigating section has secured congressional approval and comes in response to the core findings in Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco’s Comprehensive Cyber Review in July of 2022.

“NatSec Cyber will give us the horsepower and organizational structure we need to carry out key roles of the Department in this arena,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.  “This new section will allow NSD to increase the scale and speed of disruption campaigns and prosecutions of nation-state threat actors, state-sponsored cybercriminals, associated money launderers, and other cyber-enabled threats to national security.”

The National Security Cyber Section will increase the Justice Department’s capacity to disrupt and respond to malicious cyber activity, while promoting Department-wide and intragovernmental partnerships in tackling increasingly sophisticated and aggressive cyber threats by hostile nation-state adversaries. The Section will bolster collaboration between key partners, notably the Criminal Division’s Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and the FBI’s Cyber Division and will serve as a valuable resource for prosecutors in the 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and 56 FBI Field Offices across the country.

“Responding to highly technical cyber threats often requires significant time and resources,” said Assistant Attorney General Olsen. “NatSec Cyber will serve as an incubator, able to invest in the time-intensive and complex investigative work for early-stage cases.”

Today’s announcement builds upon recent successes in identifying, addressing and eliminating national security cyber threats, including the charging of an alleged cybercriminal with ransomware attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure and disruption the Russian government’s premier cyberespionage malware tool.

The decision to put cyber on equal footing with the division’s three existing sections comes as the DOJ has ramped up its own efforts to defeat botnets, contain or eliminate malware outbreaks and pursue digital criminals around the globe.

Jeffrey Newman is a whistleblower lawyer who handles cases on behalf of whistleblowers under the Fale Claims Act and other statutes overseen by Treasury, the SEC and FINCEN. He can be reached at Jeff@Jeffnewmanlaw.com of 617-823-3217