Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: In a speech at an Internet security conference, James Comey asserts that the cyber threat will dominate his tenure as the Director of the FBI.

FBI Director James Comey: We are trying to focus on targeting high-level intrusions—the biggest and most dangerous botnets, state-sponsored hackers, and global cyber syndicates. We want to try to predict and prevent attacks rather than reacting after the fact.

Halpern: The FBI created the Binary Analysis Characterization and Storage System, or BACSS, with the goal of it becoming the nation’s repository for malware and viruses, in the same way the Bureau maintains fingerprints, DNA, and criminal arrest records.

Comey: Later this year, we’re going to roll it out in an unclassified version, that we’re going to call Malware Investigator, for the use by all of our partners.

Halpern: Director Comey emphasized the partnership between the federal government and the private sector in combating the cyber threat.

Comey: We cannot do what we need to do without our private sector partners.

Halpern: From FBI Headquarters, I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau with FBI, This Week.