Category: Security

“To our FBI Family, to our federal, state, local, and Tribal law enforcement partners, and to our law enforcement partners around the world,” Director Wray said, “please know you have my gratitude for all you have done—and all you continue to do—to protect our communities.”

At the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C., the names of 282 officers killed in the line of duty were added this year to two curving, 304-foot-long limestone walls containing the names of more than 24,000 fallen law enforcement personnel. The memorial, which rests on three acres of federal park land, was dedicated in 1991 and contains names dating back to the first known death in 1786.

Among the new names etched into the stone memorial is that of retired FBI Special Agent John “Jack” Hess, who died last August of cancer he developed from toxic debris he encountered at the Pentagon on 9/11. Five years ago, Hess was among a cadre of vocal advocates pressing special agents and other 9/11 first responders to get check-ups and register for health benefits through the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.  

John “Jack” Hess’ name was added this year to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

“Don’t be afraid to go out and get screened and find that something’s wrong with you, whether it’s related to 9/11 or not,” Hess said in 2019. “You can still get sick from this. If you had exposure back at 9/11 or the days after, then please register for the World Trade Center benefit screening program.” Hess is among those being added this year to the FBI’s Wall of Honor.

In January 2021, the Los Angeles Port, one of the country’s largest and busiest shipping hubs, had effectively become a parking lot. COVID-19 had significantly slowed shipping rates globally, and dozens of 150,000-ton cargo ships were backed up and anchored in tight proximity to one another, creating a dangerous situation with little room for error. One or more of these ships was suspected to have damaged the pipeline. But the FBI would need to collect more data to narrow the list of which ships it could have potentially been.

In addition to assisting in the sample collection, USERT also worked to map the impact site. At 100 feet down with little natural light and murky ocean environments, the human eye could not effectively observe the surrounding area.

To address this, the FBI used sidescan sonar. Deployed from a remotely operated vehicle, the sonar would be pinged repeatedly. The intent was to divide the area into grids and use multiple sidescan sonar launches to fill in the grids. Dozens of missions over time would yield data for the entire area.

There are several things one can infer from sonar data, including the time it takes the sound to return gives depth. And the strength of the return can tell you what kind of material the sound is reflecting off of. A weak signal indicates muddy, sedimentary ocean floor. Stronger signals can indicate rocky bottom or foreign objects such as metal and concrete.

Summers turned the raw sonar data into a picture of the ocean floor around the break site that showed a few key details. First, the pipeline indeed was out of alignment from where it should have been, another indication it had been dragged. Second, in the soft ocean floor were furrows—scars left by an anchor that had dragged across the ocean floor and ultimately had snagged on the San Pedro pipeline.

The FBI used sidescan sonar, seen here, to help provide data to map the ocean floor surrounding the break.

A sample of the sonar data provided back. The long horizontal rows show the path of the sidescan sonar. Each section was laid side-by-side to produce a larger image of the ocean floor at the break site.

The FBI developed an initial version of the training—titled “We Regret to Inform You”—through a partnership with Penn State University. That course, which launched during National Crime Victims’ Rights Week in 2015 and was housed on PSU’s website, focused primarily on delivering death notifications and outlined a four-step model of planning, preparation, delivery, and follow-up. Over nine years, more than 40,000 individuals took the training.

In addition to positive feedback, Beers received numerous questions about other scenarios the training could used for, such as delivering notifications about arrests, child abductions, or other criminal violations. She began expanding the course to include all trauma notifications, not just deaths.

The updated Trauma Notification Training still teaches the four-step model, with the addition of eight new videos that illustrate best practices for delivering notifications in a variety of scenarios. Beers emphasizes the importance of being trauma-informed before delivering a notification, which includes ensuring victims feel safe and empowered, being honest when responding to questions, and recognizing cultural needs.

“Trauma notifications can significantly impact a loved one’s grieving process, as well as their mental, physical, and emotional health. It’s important to address victims in a trauma-informed manner, as you only get one chance at it,” said Beers.

“Every time I go out and do a notification, I’m anxious knowing I’m going to change that person’s life forever. While delivering a trauma notification can be extremely stressful for all individuals involved, there are methods to ensure the notification is provided to family members with professionalism, dignity, and compassion.”

The FBI’s Victim Services Division (VSD) has victim specialists in all 56 field offices who work to assist victims of crimes and ensure they are given the opportunity to receive the support and services they are entitled to under the law. Since its creation in 2001, VSD has provided services like crisis intervention, emergency travel assistance, referrals for counseling, and housing to nearly 2 million victims.

“How the FBI treats victims is a direct reflection of our core values, and we ensure that victims are supported with all resources available to them,” said VSD Acting Assistant Director Ashley Johnson. “Our Trauma Notification Training helps law enforcement and victim services providers deliver death and trauma notifications to family members following a crime without further traumatization.”

Pitcock eventually hired Black at his car lot, first with odd jobs and later sales, where he flourished. Pitcock invited him to his church, First Church of the Nazarene in Bethany, where Black would later share a testimonial about his life, his time in prison, and his spiritual awakening there. That’s where Pitcock’s friend and fellow congregant Rick Raines heard Black’s story. The tale’s contours sounded unbelievably familiar to Raines, a now-retired FBI special agent who had worked with Gray on the Thaddeus Black investigation more than two decades ago.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’ve got to be kidding,’” said Raines. “The next time I was at church I came up behind him and said, ‘Thaddeus, you’re not going to believe this. I was on the surveillance team that followed you around for months in Guthrie. Can you believe that?’”

“It was such a blessing behind it, though,” said Black. “I just knew that my life today was not like my life yesterday.”

Raines and Black became friends in and out of church. The retired agent later nominated Black—who had earned a pastor’s license—to become an ordained minister in his church. Two other special agents on Raines’ surveillance team  attended Black’s ordination ceremony.

Today, Pastor Black leads Tulakes Neighborhood Ministries, which includes the church, a food pantry, and a free clinic. A bus with a basketball hoop attached is often seen at its community events.

Two years ago, when Raines learned that Edward Gray would return to Oklahoma City as special agent in charge, he saw a full-circle moment at hand. He contacted Gray to let him know Black was now a pillar of the community just a few miles from where he’d been arrested long ago.

“I was like, ‘Can you believe this? This is amazing,’” Raines said. “Then Ed was like, ‘We need to get Thaddeus hooked up with our community outreach program so we can do some things together.’”

Last August, FBI Oklahoma City’s Community Outreach Program was invited to set up a booth at the Tulakes Bash, a community event sponsored by Black’s ministry. SAC Gray said Pastor Black provides a valuable connection to the community.

Members of Thaddeus Black’s congregation cheered when the pastor received news during a youth night event at his church in February that he was a recipient of the 2023 Director’s Community Leadership Award.

“He’s been able to help us get into communities we had a hard time getting into,” Gray said. “If I needed someone to kind of vouch for the FBI, having him as a friend, I think he would do that.”

FBI Community Outreach Specialist Veronica Magrath played a role in nominating Black for the Director’s Community Leadership Award. She said hundreds of people attended last summer’s outreach event and met with FBI staff up close and personal. A little girl told her mom that “the police lady” Magrath was her friend now.

“I realized the impact the relationship between Pastor Black and the FBI has on that community,” Magrath said. “There is no way to measure in numbers, but I can tell you had Pastor Black not been the one to open his arms and partner with us, the community would not have had the same response as they have had following his lead.”

Retired Special Agent Raines echoed those remarks. He said the community where Black has his ministry is poor and underserved. But he’s always out helping and setting an example for kids who may be running the streets like he did.

“He just has a trust that he built and can tell them—with his background and what he did—it’s not the way to go,” Raines said. “And they see him there working alongside law enforcement, and the FBI in particular, and it shows them that that’s not something for them to fear if they make the right choices in their life.”

How We’re Fighting Back 

The FBI’s ability to both collect and act on intelligence is crucial to our fight against the China threat.  On the cyber front, this includes sharing lessons learned with the private sector and outreach to potential victims, using our technical prowess to halt cyber intrusions and safeguard victims, and taking additional “law enforcement actions” to disrupt and deter cyber incidents. 

The FBI fights back against China through Bureau-led “joint, sequenced operations” alongside our partners. “As part of those operations, we’re often sharing targeting and other information with partners like U.S. Cyber Command, foreign law enforcement agencies, the CIA, and others, and then acting as one,” he said. 

Wray used the FBI’s responses to the aforementioned cyber compromises to illustrate what these collaborative operations can look like in practice.  

In the case of the Microsoft Exchange hack, he said, the FBI “leaned on our private sector partnerships, identified the vulnerable machines, and learned the hackers had implanted webshells—malicious code that created a back door and gave them continued remote access to the victims’ networks.”  

From there, he said, we co-authored and distributed a joint cybersecurity advisory with our partners at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to arm “network defenders” with “the technical information they needed to disrupt the threat and eliminate those backdoors.”  

And when some victims had trouble removing the dangerous code on their own, the FBI worked with Microsoft to execute “a first-of-its-kind surgical, court-authorized operation, copying and removing the harmful code from hundreds of vulnerable computers ,” he explained. This, in turn, removed the hackers’ access to victims’ networks. 

And in the case of Volt Typhoon, the FBI leveraged partnerships to share threat intelligence and to combat the actors responsible for the hack. After the Bureau learned that the malware was targeting U.S. critical infrastructure, we co-authored similar advisories that characterized the threat, called out the perpetuators, and provided victims with guidance for protecting themselves.  

Then, we collaborated with private sector partners “to identify the threat vector and conduct a court-authorized operation—in coordination with others—to not only remove Volt Typhoon’s malware from the routers it had infected throughout the U.S., but also to sever their connection to that network of routers and prevent their reinfection.” 

How Partners Can Join the Fight 

Wray said that private sector organizations and academia, alike, can partner with the FBI to protect the nation’s “most essential networks” and to conduct “joint, sequenced operations.”  
Since private companies own most of our nation’s critical infrastructure, they can help the FBI by defending against Chinese attacks and sharing “vital information about what adversaries are doing—or preparing to do—against us,” he said.  

Vigilance, he said, is vital to this effort. “That includes resiliency planning—things like developing an incident response plan, actually testing and exercising that plan, and fortifying networks and devices to make the attack surface as inhospitable as possible,” he added. These plans should indicate when a company will contact the Bureau for assistance in the event of a cyber intrusion, he noted. 

Likewise, he encouraged private sector organizations to keep an eye on their “hardware and supply chains” to avoid potential compromise, such as the Solar Winds hack that used “innocuous-looking software updates” as a vector. 

“Vetting your vendors, their security practices, and knowing who’s building the hardware and software you’re granting access to your network is crucial, so push for transparency into what vendors and suppliers are doing with your data and how they will maintain it,” he said. 
Wray said partnerships are critical to countering the risk posed by China, and that it’s vital for cyberattack victims to promptly notify the FBI. That way, we can gather threat intelligence that can help us both assist victims and mitigate risk to other organizations and sectors. 

“We’ve seen the best outcomes in situations where a company made a habit of reaching out to their local FBI field office even before there was any indication of a problem, because that put everyone on the same page and contributed to the company’s readiness,” he said. 

The FBI has also been long-dedicated to cultivating bonds within academia, he said, noting that partnerships between the FBI and academic institutions can give the Bureau a better understanding of the issues these institutions face when interacting with the Chinese government. They can also benefit academia by giving institutions “a better understanding of national security threats and make informed decisions about how to deal with them,” he added. 

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