A recent Justice Department reorganization of its National Security Division concentrates resources on fighting state-sponsored economic espionage and corporate theft of trade secrets. These strategic changes focus on Justice’s ability to target and prosecute hackers and others who seek to damage national assets by means including economic espionage, proliferation, and cyber-based national security threats.

Though the Department retains terrorism as its top focus, the appointment of a new Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Mary B. McCord, specifically to protect national assets indicates a shift in priorities and an increased focus on the investigation and prosecution of trade secrets theft.

Justice’s announcement aligns trade secrets theft with “key emerging threats to our national security,” according to Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin. The shift seems to portend increased resources to protect American individuals and corporations from the growing threat of cyber-espionage as Justice increasingly perceives it as a national security issue.

TS Watch will be watching closely to see whether this new initiative becomes more than a bureaucratic reshuffling, or whether it actually results in more investigations and prosecutions.