The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Connecticut has announced the creation of a Connecticut Cyber Task Force (“CCTF”) in partnership with the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, Homeland Security, IRS, Connecticut State Police, and 11 local police departments from throughout Connecticut as well as other federal authorities. The CCTF’s initial focus will be twofold: (1) to “target criminal activity on the dark web, notably the illicit acquisition and distribution of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs that are the cause of tens of thousands of overdose deaths annually” and (2) “to identify and disrupt criminal organizations that use computer intrusions to defraud companies of their money and information.”
In announcing the creation of the CCTF, the U.S. Attorney’s Office referenced a number of high-profile federal criminal prosecutions in Connecticut over the past decade that have involved cybercrime, including the investigation into the Coreflood botnet in 2011, prosecution of Romanian nationals who stole financial and personal information through phishing, an investigation into fentanyl distribution involving dark web acquisition of the drug, and prosecution of a Nigerian citizen allegedly running a phishing scheme on school system employees, amongst others. More details on the CCTF are available here.
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