FBI veteran Brett Leatherman to lead Cyber division

Leatherman, a 22-year FBI veteran, has been heavily involved in cyber investigations as section chief and deputy assistant director over the past three years. 

A familiar face is being promoted from within to lead the FBI’s Cyber division.

In a LinkedIn post Sunday, Brett Leatherman said that FBI Director Kash Patel had selected him as assistant director and lead official for the FBI’s primary division for investigating cybercrimes.  The role is prominent in national security, espionage and counterintelligence investigations.

The division “sits at the intersection of law enforcement, intelligence, and national defense — uniquely positioned to impose cost on our cyber adversaries while supporting victims of cybercrime,” Leatherman wrote in his announcement.

“Our charge is simple but not easy: make malicious cyber activity unsustainable. That means disrupting criminal and nation-state actors, sharing intelligence that helps victims defend and recover, and shaping the broader operating environment through persistent engagement,” he continued.

Leatherman, a 22-year FBI veteran, has been heavily involved in cyber investigations as section chief and deputy assistant director over the past three years, often personally briefing the public and news media on high-profile cases.

He was among the leaders of law enforcement efforts to unmask LockBitSupp, the wealthy primary administrator of the LockBit ransomware, to respond to the 2021 ransomware attacks on Colonial Pipeline, and oversaw major cybercrime investigations, such as the recent infection of millions of devices with LummaC2 malware.

He was also part of the bureau’s efforts over the past year to investigate and unwind a pair of massive Chinese state-sponsored hacking operations — Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon — that are targeting the U.S. telecommunications and other critical infrastructure sectors.

Leatherman takes over the reins from Bryan Vorndran, who led the bureau’s Cyber Division from 2021 until this past spring when he left the federal government to take a job as Microsoft’s deputy chief information security officer.  

His elevation provides a measure of stability at the bureau’s Cyber Division as the FBI and federal government more broadly has dealt with widespread firings, personnel shakeups and departures from key staff under the Trump administration.

In addition to Vorndran, Cynthia Kaiser, the bureau’s longtime policy, intelligence and engagement lead at FBI Cyber, left this month to take a position at cybersecurity firm Halcyon.

Government

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Dogged Russia-based botnet dismantled after 23-year run

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

• The Collective Cyber Defense letter wrote your next vendor questionnaire

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure