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Pittsburgh the hotbed of cybercrime prosecution
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: July 11, 2014
For several reasons, neighboring Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania seems to be cybercrime prosecution central. And it’s not because there’s nothing to do there because the Penguins got knocked out in the second round again (not bitter).
Two high-profile international cybercrime cases have recently been brought in front of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, according to an analysis posted on Law.com.
Both cases are considered groundbreaking, with the potential to influence the next generation of the prosecution of these crimes.
The first case involves a “botnet” scheme that originated in Russia, and allegedly stole millions of dollars using captured computers. The prosecution is seeking to sever those computers from the hacker-created network.
The second case, which has obvious international law implications, involves five members of the Chinese military allegedly acting under the auspices of the People’s Liberation Army Unit 61398, reportedly responsible for cyber espionage.
The latter case, which involved attacks against companies around the world, including 115 in the United States, was the first-ever criminal prosecution for a cybercrime committed by a state actor.
Why Pittsburgh?
Well, for several reasons.
The first reason is that the local federal prosecutor, David Hickton, created an early-on unit for such prosecution when he took office in 2010.
The second is that there is a local base of technical support, particularly from Carnegie-Mellon’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a nationally-recognized cybersecurity support division of the school.
There is also an FBI cybergroup, and another cybersecurity organization known as the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance.
Pittsburgh is also home to a number of large businesses that could be targets for these kinds of crimes—including Westinghouse, which was one of the Chinese targets.
Of course, actually getting the defendants in the courtroom is another matter, as would be any fines, restitution, or restraining orders.
But that isn’t stopping the government from proceeding with prosecuting, now or into the fuitutre. An investigator for the FBI, commenting on the Russian and Chinese cases, said that federal prosecution of international cybercrime is “the new normal,” and promised more of it to come. And much of it will come out of the Steel City..