FBI announces cyberattack-reporting portal for private sector companies

The US FBI has launched iGuardian, an online portal for private sector companies that allows them to easily and consistently report to the Bureau any cyber threat or attack they are targeted with.

The pilot program, whose creation was announced at the AFCEA International Global Intelligence Forum by Richard McFeely, the FBI’s assistant director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response Services Branch, will initially be available only to the 58,000 companies that are part of the FBI’s InfraGuard network.

If it works like they believe it will, other companies will be invited to use it – especially those in the critical infrastructure sectors.

“We did not have a structured way that we were collecting the information from companies that had been hacked,” said McFeely. “We did not have, really, a form that we could share with companies to make sure we were getting all the information that we needed.”

iGuardian provides that, and the filled-out form is delivered to the National Cyber Investigative Joint Taskforce, which includes 19 government intelligence and law enforcement agencies that work together to track, attribute, and take action against cyber threats and attackers.

After a company submits a report, individual field offices and their cyber task forces will be the ones who will engage with them.

According to FNR, information about the attacks will also be disseminated to other companies, but the names of the attacked firms will be left out.