Full Report
Competing agencies and districts are another hurdle for prosecutions, an investigator said in a recent speech. The post Investigator says differing names for hacker groups, hackers studying investigative methods hinders law enforcement appeared first on CyberScoop.
Analysis Summary
This article summarizes systemic challenges facing law enforcement (LE) in prosecuting cybercriminals, rather than focusing on a single, named threat actor. Therefore, the summary below reflects the challenges caused by diverse threat actor naming conventions and their investigative awareness.
# Threat Actor: Unspecified Cyber Criminal Groups (General Threat Landscape)
## Attribution & Identity
The subject is not a specific, named threat actor, but rather an analysis of how **unspecified malicious hacking groups** generally operate, including their tendency to use multiple names, which hampers law enforcement coordination.
## Activity Summary
The article primarily discusses the challenges faced by U.S. federal law enforcement in prosecuting cybercrime due to:
1. **Fragmented Naming Landscapes:** Agencies and private sector entities use differing names for the same groups, complicating intelligence sharing and case deconfliction.
2. **Investigative Awareness:** Threat actors actively study investigative procedures by utilizing the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system to review affidavits and understand how investigations are opened and conducted.
3. **Jurisdictional Hurdles:** Competing districts and agencies prioritize their own "stats," disincentivizing cross-district collaboration required for virtual, global crimes.
## Tactics, Techniques & Procedures
The actors' primary documented TTP discussed relates to intelligence gathering against law enforcement:
- **Intelligence Gathering:** Threat actors actively utilize the **Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER)** system to study investigative affidavits and procedures.
- **Operational Ambiguity:** Utilizing **differing names** from those used by other agencies or the private sector to maintain confusion.
## Targeting
- Sectors: Not specified, but operations are described as attacking **targets around the globe**.
- Geography: Global reach, operating **across the world**.
- Victims: Implied to be any organization or individual accessible via networks that result in federal jurisdiction issues.
## Tools & Infrastructure
- **PACER System:** Used as an infrastructure component for studying law enforcement methodology (not a primary C2).
- Malware families used: **None mentioned.**
- Infrastructure (C2, domains, IPs): **None mentioned.**
## Implications
The primary implication is that the current justice system structure is ill-equipped for global cybercrime. Fragmented naming conventions and the ability of threat actors to monitor prosecutorial documents (via PACER) significantly hinder effective deconfliction, resource allocation, and successful prosecution efforts by U.S. federal agencies.
## Mitigations
The investigator suggested structural and procedural changes rather than specific defensive tactics:
- **Standardization:** Need for common standards for group names, Indicators of Compromise (IOCs), and Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) across agencies.
- **Improved Deconfliction:** Strengthening mechanisms like the FBI’s National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, perhaps moving away from detailing personnel to full assignments to foster genuine collaboration, similar to EUROPOL practices.
- **Jurisdictional Flexibility:** Allowing agents to work on cases impacting their area of responsibility regardless of the physical location of the victim within the U.S.