In the past month, a coalition involving the Pittsburgh office of the FBI, a Carnegie Mellon University center and a quiet nonprofit has taken down the Gameover Zeus computer theft network, crippled the Cryptolocker data ransom scheme and indicted the Russian accused of being their puppet master, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh has become the arsenal of cybersecurity because it is home to CMU's Software Engineering Institute with its 260-person CERT cyberteam.
The FBI has located a nonprofit training alliance there. The resulting cases represent “new ground for not only the FBI, but the entire U.S. government,” said Scott S. Smith, special agent in charge of the bureau's Pittsburgh field office. The newspaper profiles the man in charge, J. Keith Mularski, supervisory special agent for the FBI Pittsburgh's cybersquad, who is a native of the area who is regarded as an international expert in the field.