Utah Department of Public Safety

Cyber Crime: How DPS Serves as a National Model For Cyber Preparedness

The U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance understands that many states and communities need support in helping ensure information systems are designed to identify, prepare for, prevent and respond to cyber threats and incidents. Utah is a leader across the nation in building cyber resilience and the Police Executive Research Forum published an extensive case study and special report to share Utah’s promising practices with other communities and states. The report is called, “The Utah Model: A Path Forward for Investigating and Building Resilience to Cyber Crime,” and several communities and states are now using it as their guide and playbook to build programs of their own.

Read the full report here: Utah MODEL

The Utah Model Quotes & Summary

Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Keith D. Squires: “We are pleased to be able to help other communities and states by sharing our cyber resilience program with them. This is a big compliment to the State of Utah. We saw a need for a multiple agency collaborative program and decided launch the efforts to be proactive. Thanks to a long list of public safety partner agencies, state legislators and hardworking staff, many different teams worked to determine the problems we face and developed solutions to those problems. Several of the teams relied on stakeholder input from the Federal to the local levels. We tackled multiple challenging assignments and were able to complete the projects we needed using a whole community approach.”

FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Barnhart applauds Utah’s efforts and said, “Due to the nature and sophistication of the cyber threat, law enforcement must take a holistic approach, such as the Utah Department of Public Safety and the FBI has, under Operation Wellspring. The cyber threat impacts law enforcement at all levels and requires a shared consciousness and the ability to synchronize expertise and assets to effectively combat it.”

FBI SSA James Lamadrid added, “The Utah Model accurately captures the current challenges law enforcement experiences in cyber-crime investigations and provides state and local agencies with the lessons learned from partnering with the FBI: the challenges, benefits, and the urgency. Understanding where we are as a nation and where we need be in order to fight cyber-crime is the first step towards strengthening our cyber posture.”

To report a cyber crime, visit the FBI’s Internet Crime Complain Center (IC3). The FBI’s IC3 accepts online Internet crime complaints from either the actual victim or from a third party to the complainant.