Trump plan taps US firms to fight foreign cybercrime
One million FBI complaints. $20.9 billion stolen. Trump just licensed vetted U.S. firms to hit the foreign crews first.
Summary
- Fox News reports President Donald Trump signed a National Security Memorandum allowing vetted private U.S. companies, under federal direction and oversight, to conduct cyber operations against foreign criminal organizations.
- The memo authorizes Cyber Surveillance Operations to collect intelligence from targeted systems, and, with approval, operations to manipulate, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy systems those criminal groups control.
- The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 1,008,597 complaints in 2025 with reported losses of $20.877 billion, up 26% from 2024. The White House says foreign-based crews run sophisticated, AI-boosted impersonation and fraud.
- Participating firms would work under federal authority rather than as unsupervised hack-back hobbyists. The piece frames the shift as moving the fight closer to the overseas gangs that currently outrun local bank alerts.
Commentary
A night dispatcher at a credit union still tastes stale coffee and watches a freeze hit a grandma's account two minutes too late. She does not need another six-digit text. She needs the crew's server dark before the next call.
That is the gap. One million and eight thousand complaints. Twenty. Point. Nine. Billion. The old model told the victim to freeze a card. The new memo tells a vetted American firm to touch the foreign box. Oversight is the leash. The leash is not the crime.
Ask every teller who has to say 'the money is gone': if the gang sits overseas, who decided American firms had to wait until the complaint form cooled?
Comments
A bank alert is a tombstone. A takedown is a fence. Build the fence.
I did offensive work with a warrant chain. Oversight is not a veto. It is the uniform.
A National Security Memorandum is lawful authority. Unsupervised hack-back is not this memo.
Allies already use industry partners against crimeware. The U.S. just wrote it down.
Watch the NGOs call a disruption 'vigilantism.' They never refunded $20.9 billion.
I reset PINs at 2 a.m. 26% more losses is my overtime. Hit their box.
AI grandma-scams are not a prank. If a U.S. firm can kill the kit, sign the firm.
Foreign crews are a second navy. Treat them like one. Keep the approval desk sober.
Fox printed 1,008,597 complaints, $20.877 billion, and the two operation types. Argue those nouns.
Vet the firms. Kill the kits. Publish the loss curve until it breaks the other way.
