The US Justice Department is broadening its overseas efforts against cybercrime, for the first time stationing a legal adviser in Malaysia to help ensure Southeast Asian countries have the laws and tools to fight hackers.
The position is intended to shore up international partnerships against a type of crime that's without geographic borders and is often carried out by overseas hackers who elude American prosecution.
Stronger foreign cybercrime laws are essential if other countries hope to address the problem, experts say, especially given the obstacles US officials often face in locating, extraditing and convicting overseas hackers.
The post is funded by the State Department and lasts for a year, though Justice Department officials hope to expand the initiative to other parts of the world if it proves successful.
"It's a region of the world where there's a high level of sophistication with technology" where cyber criminals can set up "and prey on others in the world," Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
She was scheduled to discuss the move in a speech today.
The announcement comes one day after federal authorities made public the detention in Malaysia of a Kosovo citizen who's accused of hacking crimes and providing stolen personal information about US service members and federal employees to Islamic State leaders.
John Carlin, the Justice Department's top national security official, called the case "the first of its kind."
The new post in Malaysia is occupied by Thomas Dougherty, who spent years as a Justice Department computer crimes prosecutor.
He already has met with officials from Vietnam to discuss potential improvements to that country's penal code and has reviewed cases with Malaysian officials.
He'll also be a point of contact for coordinating training on cyber investigations and prosecutions and a resource for questions about the use of electronic evidence and other topics, State Department officials said.
The new position is an acknowledgement that encouraging foreign countries to arrest hackers within their own borders can sometimes be a more efficient strategy than hauling them into US courts.
But US officials say they'll continue seeking extradition of those captured overseas, and that improving laws in foreign countries is part of that process.
