The FBI’s cyber chief is using Winter SHIELD to accelerate China prep, threat intelligence sharing
The FBI’s cyber chief is using Winter SHIELD to accelerate China prep, threat intelligence sharing
https://cyberscoop.com/brett-leatherman-fbi-cyber-priorities-winter-shield/
Publish Date: 2026-03-02 15:57:00
Source Domain: cyberscoop.com
The FBI’s cyber chief is prioritizing preparation for stepped-up Chinese threats, enhanced confrontation of adversaries in cyberspace and quicker intelligence sharing with industry as the bureau enters the second and final month of a unique cybersecurity awareness campaign.
Brett Leatherman, who took over as assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division last summer, listed those topics as his three top priorities in a recent interview with CyberScoop. At least two of them overlap considerably with the bureau’s current awareness campaign, Operation Winter SHIELD.
It’s the kind of thing that might normally be more expected to come out of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which once had its own shield-themed campaign, rather than the FBI.
‘We’ve never done a media campaign like this before,” he said. “But while it’s atypical for a law enforcement agency to do this kind of technical media campaign, we thought it was incredibly important because it translates that law enforcement perspective [into] meaningful ways that industry can move the needle towards increased resilience across critical infrastructure, industry, government agencies and beyond.”
As part of the campaign, the FBI is highlighting 10 recommendations, like protecting security logs and implementing phishing-resistant authentication, that stem from the FBI’s incident response mission.
“The 10 recommendations that we’re making right now are not a surprise to many people out there who work or have cyber over the last few years, but it’s important that we also highlight that these 10 controls are the ways that we continue to see actors getting into fortune 100 businesses and small to medium businesses in virtually 99% or greater of the investigations we run,” Leatherman said.
The campaign has involved localized events for industry, podcasts, international appearances, coordinated messages with cyber-focused companies and more….
