Brett Leatherman, a longtime FBI official who was most recently deputy director for Cyber Operations, will take over as assistant director of the bureau’s Cyber Division, he announced in a LinkedIn post Sunday.
Leatherman said FBI Director Kash Patel elevated him to the position, taking over from Brian Vorndran, who retired from government service last month to join Microsoft as a deputy CISO.
Leatherman has been a consistent voice detailing various FBI cyber takedown operations and other moves from agents to deter nation-state hackers and cybercriminals.
In an interview with Nextgov/FCW at the RSAC Conference earlier this year, Leatherman said that Chinese government hacking groups and ransomware gangs continue to keep him up at night. He also said he was feeling better about improvements between public-private partnerships.
“I’m feeling better about resilience overall in private industry,” he said. “We’re not there yet, but the relationships that we have built with the private sector … to move the needle when it comes to deterrence through defense.” He added that international partnerships have continued to improve.
Leatherman has served for over 20 years at the FBI. He told Nextgov/FCW in a magazine interview earlier this year that he joined after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
“At the time, the FBI recognized there was a significant need to shift their hiring practices to really focus on people with cyber skill sets, because it wasn’t just about cybercrime, but also terrorism, counter intelligence and criminal investigations. We needed agents who had more of a technical discipline to help with that,” he said.
“Our charge is simple but not easy: make malicious cyber activity unsustainable. That means disrupting criminal and nation-state actors, sharing intelligence that helps victims defend and recover, and shaping the broader operating environment through persistent engagement,” Leatherman said in his Sunday LinkedIn post.
Cynthia Kaiser, another Cyber Division official, recently departed to join ransomware-focused firm Halcyon.
