DOJ hiring new liaison prosecutor to hunt cybercriminals in Eastern Europe

The Justice Department is hiring a new Liaison Prosecutor to work with authorities in Eastern Europe to combat the rising wave of organized cybercrime activity, The Record has learned.

The new Liaison Prosecutor will be delegated with Eurojust, an European Union agency that coordinates judicial cooperation and joint investigations.

Under this role, the Liaison Prosecutor will have the following responsibilities:

1. Train and develop skills for prosecutors, police, and judges, including through case-based mentoring on transnational organized cybercrime cases;
2. Identify gaps in existing laws, advise legislative bodies on the enactment of effective legislation and amendment of existing laws to increase enforcement efficacy;
3. build capacity within the law enforcement agencies to combat transnational organized cybercrime.

The role is not new. The selected attorney will replace Richard D. Green, who previously served as the DOJ's Transnational Organized Cybercrime Liaison Prosecutor for Eastern Europe between December 2018 and December 2020.

The move to hire a new Eastern Europe Liaison Prosecutor also came on the same day the DOJ said it would soon begin a 120-day review of cybersecurity challenges.

DOJ Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said during the Munich Cyber Security Conference that the Justice Department would work to analyze the biggest cybersecurity threats the US is facing today, and the tools prosecutors have at their disposal to go after threat actors, and then make changes to adapt to the current threat landscape.

The Friday announcements also come after three days earlier, the DOJ, together with private sector partners, submitted an 80-page report to the Biden administration with a long series of aggressive measures aimed at curbing ransomware attacks and going after ransomware groups.

Prioritizing the prosecution of ransomware groups was one of the report's main recommendations.

The soon-to-be-hired Eastern Europe Liaison Prosecutor will play a big role in the DOJ's future plans since many of today's cybercrime groups, and especially ransomware gangs, are suspected to be operating out of Eastern European countries.