Christopher Wray, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has informed Congress that the number of Chinese hackers far exceeds that of US cyber intelligence staff. He urged for additional funding for the agency to address this disparity.
During a budget hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed that the agency’s cyber intelligence staff is significantly outnumbered by Chinese hackers. According to Wray’s prepared remarks, “if each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intel analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, Chinese hackers would still outnumber FBI Cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1.” He made a plea for more funding for the agency to help combat the threat.
The revelation underscores the enormous size of cyber threats that the U.S. is confronting, especially from China. Wray emphasized that the country has a larger hacking program than any other major nation and has pilfered more of America’s personal and corporate data than all other nations, regardless of size, combined.
Although China poses a massive cyber threat to the U.S., FBI Director Christopher Wray noted that other countries such as Russia, Iran, and North Korea, as well as non-state criminal actors, also pose significant cybersecurity concerns. Wray stated that the FBI is currently investigating over 100 “ransomware variants” with each having “scores of victims”.
The FBI is seeking approximately $63 million to augment its cyber workforce by adding 192 new positions, according to Wray. He stated that this would enable the FBI to deploy more cyber personnel in field offices, closer to where the victims of cyber crimes are located.