Cyber and intellectual property cases can potentially have victim and witness sensitivity issues. For example, a company may fear public disclosure of a computer intrusion or theft of trade secrets which may, in turn, impact the victim’s willingness to alert law enforcement to an issue. CHIP AUSAs should ensure that they follow current Guidelines for Victim and Witness Assistance issued by the Department, both in the form of guidance memoranda and Justice Manual provisions.

Foremost among the Department’s goals is our pledge to keep our country safe from threatened or ongoing harm. Department personnel are required by law and under the Attorney General Guidelines for Victim and Witness Assistance (AG Guidelines) to identify victims of a crime, notify them of their rights, and offer them services as described in the AG Guidelines. In the context of cyber and cyber-enabled crimes, as with many other crimes, timely victim identification and notification can be the difference between successful mitigation or significant cyber attack. Both the Department and the FBI measure our performance in the context of cyber investigations, in part, by how quickly we are initiating cases and FBI personnel are contacting victims. In this context, investigators frequently require grand jury subpoenas or other legal process to learn the identity of a victim (e.g., to receive subscriber information for an Internet Protocol address). CHIP AUSAs should ensure that their district has a process in place devoted to providing investigators with the appropriate legal process for victim identification promptly upon initiating a case and receiving such an investigator’s request, as identified in JM 9-50.104.

[added August 2023]