State Department urged to assess cybercrime-combating capabilities of U.S. allies

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has called on the State Department to re-evaluate the U.S. government's allies' cybercrime-combating capabilities to better determine the benefits yielded by federal aid in curbing cybercrime in other countries, according to FedScoop. "Without such evaluations, State cannot ensure that agencies individual activities or case-specific accomplishments are contributing to long-term success in improving foreign nations ability to more effectively combat cybercrime," said the GAO in a report. Moreover, the report has also shed light on key challenges in establishing global cybercrime fighting capacity discovered by an expert panel including State Department, Homeland Security, and Justice Department officials, as well as international experts. Building such capacity is being hindered not only by inadequate dedicated resources, highly trained staff retention challenges, and inconsistent cybercrime definitions, but also information gathering challenges, lack of dedicated funding, and insufficient collaboration with the U.S. government. The State Department has already expressed support to the GAO's recommendation for the comprehensive evaluation of cybercrime-countering capacity building efforts.