The FBI has named a Gordon M. Snow as the new assistant director for its Cyber Division, responsible for protecting the U.S. against cyber-based attacks and other high-technology crimes.
According to a press release on the FBI website, Snow has well credentialed for his new position. He worked in Afghanistan as the FBI’s on-scene commander for counterterrorism in June of 2007 before joining the Cyber Division in January 2008. He was section chief of the cyber division, detailed to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Counterintelligence Executive, where he and his staff led the effort in drafting the government-wide Comprehensive National Cyber Initiative. In January 2009, Snow was appointed chief of the Cyber Division’s Cyber National Security Section and the director of the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, and named deputy assistant director of the Cyber Division that November.
According to the FBI website, the Cyber Division is charged with four objectives:
- To stop those behind the most serious computer intrusions and the spread of malicious code
- To identify and thwart online sexual predators who use the Internet to meet and exploit children and to produce, possess, or share child pornography
- To counteract operations that target U.S. intellectual property, endangering our national security and competitiveness
- To dismantle national and transnational organized criminal enterprises engaging in Internet fraud
Further reading: FBI cyber investigations section, National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace (PDF).
