[Infowarrior] - Private Sector Pay Lures F.B.I.’s Hacking Experts

[Richard Forno]

(not to mention leaving for a better work environment and culture, too.  -rick)

Private Sector Pay Lures F.B.I.’s Hacking Experts

By MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN    JULY 21, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/business/dealbook/fbi-scrambles-as-private-sector-lures-online-crime-investigators.html

As attacks on networks and thefts of data grow, federal agents with just a few years of investigations into Internet crime under their belts need not look too hard for work in the private sector.

In the last three months, at least a half-dozen agents on the online security squad of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigations have left the federal government for more lucrative jobs in the private sector. The flurry of departures is beginning to concern top law officials at the F.B.I., who are struggling to figure out ways to recruit younger agents and retain veteran investigators.

The most recent F.B.I. agent to announce his departure is Leo Taddeo, who oversees much of the online crime operation for the agency in New York. Mr. Taddeo announced his planned August departure in an email sent on Monday to dozens of government employees and private security consultants. Mr. Taddeo, who did not respond to a request for comment, said in the blast email that he would be taking a job as chief security officer for a security software company, which he did not name.

Several recipients of Mr. Taddeo’s email responded by congratulating him and noting that his departure would not only be a loss for the government but also for the financial sector, which is a prime target of hackers.

Mr. Taddeo’s departure was not a big surprise given that he has more than 20 years of service with the F.B.I., the threshold at which most agents can retire with full benefits. But Mr. Taddeo was promoted to his position less than two years ago, and the timing is an indication of how quickly private companies are looking to snap up any agent with experience in digital investigations.

The issue of private industry, including corporations and consulting firms, hiring away veteran investigators is a concern for James B. Comey, the F.B.I.’s director, who has met with several top agents from around the country to discuss their reasons for leaving the bureau, said several people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In those conversations, the now-departed agents told Mr. Comey that it was not just a big increase in salary that attracted them to the private sector, but also the prospect of quicker professional advancement. The people briefed on the matter said one problem with the structure of the F.B.I. is that promotions are often based on tenure rather than merit.

“Director Comey has called attracting and retaining good cybertalent a ‘continual challenge,’ one that both the private and public sectors are dealing with,” John Boles, the acting executive assistant director of the F.B.I. branch that oversees online security response and services, said in a statement. “In addition to technical capabilities, we are also trying to attract people with character, competence and commitment and we are looking for incentives that will encourage candidates to choose F.B.I. service. While private sector jobs have many attractions, there is simply no career in the private sector as rewarding as working for the F.B.I. and knowing that each day you are helping protect America from threats in cyberspace.”

One private firm that has been particularly aggressive in hiring away agents from the F.B.I. in New York is K2 Intelligence, a corporate investigations firm co-founded by Jules Kroll and his son Jeremy. The Kroll family, which has a history of performing corporate investigations, recently received a major investment from the insurance giant American International Group and is looking to strengthen its work in consulting on digital breaches and data thefts.

In April, K2 announced it was hiring Austin P. Berglas from the New York office of the F.B.I. Mr. Berglas was one of the agents overseeing the investigation into last summer’s security breach at JPMorgan Chase that compromised some contact information for 83 million households and small businesses. Following Mr. Berglas to K2 were two other agents, Joseph M. Lawlor and Milan Patel.

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors announced a series of arrests in Israel and Florida involving a number of pump-and-dump stock schemes. People briefed on the matter said some of the men arrested also had some involvement in the JPMorgan Chase security breach, although the men were not charged in that crime.

Other companies that have been hiring F.B.I. agents with digital investigation expertise over the last year are FTI Consulting, a business advisory firm, and Tanium, which markets a platform that enables companies to monitor its systems for attacks.

The exodus from the F.B.I.’s office in New York began in earnest a little over a year ago when Christopher Tarbell, one of the lead agents on the investigation into the Silk Road online marketplace for illegal drugs and hacked credit card numbers, took a job at FTI. Mr. Tarbell came to FTI in March 20014 with Thomas G. A. Brown, former chief of the computer and intellectual property crime unit of the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. Since then, FTI, which has employees in 27 countries, has hired two other experienced digital investigators, Ilhwan Yum and Thomas Kiernan, from of the F.B.I. in New York.

Former agents said the talent drain from the F.B.I. is likely to continue for the near future as corporations pay more attention to the threat posed by hackers and the federal government finds it hard to compete with the salaries private employers can pay.

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It's better to burn out than fade away.