 Ladies and gentlemen, as many of you know, the Internet began in 1969 as a research project connecting two American universities. According to historians already, by 1972 a dope deal or two had been struck using this new technology. Thus, almost as long as there has been an Internet, there has been Internet crime. Something we define today to include not only crimes committed using computers such as the sale of drugs or the transfer of images of the sexual abuse of children, but also crimes committed against computers like hacking. As we are all very well aware, the problem of Internet crime has only grown exponentially in recent years. Every day, cyber criminals strive to disrupt our economies, devastate our critical infrastructures, extort our money, steal our intellectual property, cripple our networks, jeopardize our privacy, and strike fear and uncertainty into the hearts of people worldwide. People of all ages are affected. Cyber criminals prey on our children and they target the elderly. And they operate dark markets selling weapons, drugs, and other dangerous contraband. Cyber criminals are increasingly sophisticated and the stakes simply could not be higher. If we fail to effectively counter the latest trends in cyber criminality, the Internet itself could be at risk. Two examples come to mind. First, last year in 2016, an attack launched against domain name servers in the United States made it effectively impossible for many users to access certain websites. The attacker seized control of multiple computers on the Internet and used those machines to overwhelm their targets with traffic through what is called a distributed denial of service or DDoS attack. The DDoS attack itself is cause for alarm, but what makes that attack doubly concerning is the fact that the computers used by the cyber criminals were not desktop PCs or laptops, but instead simple Internet-connected devices such as cameras and digital video recorders. These so-called Internet of Things devices surround us and they are easily susceptible to attack. A second type of threat, ransomware attacks, have also become increasingly common. For years, hackers and cyber criminals have installed malicious software on the machines of ordinary computer users without those users' permission or knowledge. In the past, criminals used the software to create botnets, that is, networks of compromised computers that they used to send spam, to harvest passwords, or to conduct DDoS attacks. Nowadays, botnets are also used to launch ransomware attacks in which malicious software encrypts the user's files, rendering the computer inoperable, and its data inaccessible. Cyber criminals then demand payment in exchange for returning control. Not only is this extortion on a global scale, but many victims have unsurprisingly found that the perpetrators do not live up to their side of the bargain. Ransomware attacks grew by 36% between 2015 and 2016, and as recent events have confirmed, this year looks to have an even greater increase. In the face of these and other new challenges, we who combat cybercrime must build on our strengths and we must learn from our successes. These successes include the international community's decades of achievements in creating mechanisms, tools, and legal instruments to address internet crime. The United States is proud to have joined the only agreement among nations to comprehensively address computer crime, the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, commonly known as the Budapest Convention. The Budapest Convention is a multilateral treaty that addresses computer-related crime. For a negotiation process that began in the mid-1990s, the treaty entered into force in July 2004. The Convention requires parties to have a basic level of domestic criminal law in the cyberfield and provides a platform for transnational law enforcement cooperation in investigations, evidence sharing, and extradition. The Convention also requires parties to criminalize computer-related crimes, such as computer hacking, fraud, and child sexual exploitation. It requires that parties have the ability to effectively investigate computer-related crime through the collection and sharing of electronic evidence. And it enhances international cooperation in cases involving computer-related crime. While some mistakenly refer to the Convention as European or regional, to the contrary, the Budapest Convention was drafted to be global and is open to all countries, regardless of whether they are members of the Council of Europe. In fact, as of this month, 55 countries are parties to the Convention. Non-Council of Europe countries such as Australia, Chile, Japan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and my country, the United States, to name just a few, are members. If the Budapest Convention is regional, then its region is the globe. The case for the Budapest Convention is simple. The Internet reaches every nation on Earth. Thus, Internet crime can originate from anywhere on Earth. Therefore, to effectively confront cybercrime, every nation's police and prosecutors must share information and evidence with other countries. The Budapest Convention addresses that need. Indeed, no other effort to achieve transnational investigative cooperation has the Budapest Convention's track record. In short, the Budapest Convention is THE governance architecture that addresses the fight against Internet crime. As it has done from the moment it came into force, the Budapest Convention continues to comprehensively cover cybercriminality. Not only is the negotiation of a new or updated cyber convention unnecessary, but doing so would impose enormous costs by distracting our experts from detecting, responding to, and prosecuting the critical cyber threats we all face today. Once we accept this proven framework, our energies can be focused on the capacity building and training efforts that have proven so successful in facilitating strong law enforcement operations and partnerships. With this background in mind, I would like to discuss with you my government's international cybersecurity priorities. While certainly non-exhaustive, the United States Department of Justice views the following areas to be of top priority in identifying, investigating, disrupting, and deterring cybercrime. First, we must focus on the criminal infrastructure of Internet crime, the illegal products, services, and resources offered by kingpin criminals that increase the profitability and lower the risks associated with committing crimes online. This criminal infrastructure includes the development of malware super services, such as the Avalanche platform. Avalanche was a criminal service that permitted cybercriminals to conceal their online infrastructure and to manage malicious software while avoiding detection by law enforcement. In late 2016, German authorities engaged international partners, including the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, to dismantle Avalanche's infrastructure and apprehend its administrators and users. This bold, aggressive action is a credit to German law enforcement and to the other nations that participated. Another aspect of the Internet's criminal infrastructure is the dark web. Dark websites run on a special network of computers designed to conceal information that could reveal the identity or location of the individuals using it. Many dark websites engage openly in the trade of narcotics, guns, images of sexual abuse of children, and much worse. Let me discuss one such site in particular. In 2015, the Playpen website, a dark website used by more than 100,000 pedophiles around the world to trade images of the sexual abuse of children, was shut down. Authorities rested control of the site from its administrators and then obtained approval from a court to use a remote search tool to undo the user's anonymity. This operation led to the identification or rescue of more than 300 sexually abused children around the globe, and to the arrest of over 1,000 exploiters of children. Dismantling dark websites is a priority for my nation. An international cooperation is critical for our success. In 2013, U.S. law enforcement, in cooperation with international partners, took down the infamous drug web drug marketplace called Silk Road. In 2014, again working with Europol and with other international partners, U.S. law enforcement undertook Operation Onimus, in which authorities acted against more than 400 dark websites. That leads me to the second major priority, we must work together. We must build capacity in nations that are under-resourced to address computer and network misuse. Notably, Interpol has advanced the global cause of law enforcement by providing training to police where requested. Any effective approach to countering cyber crime requires similar training efforts with the goal of promoting universal participation in the fight against internet crime. As I've mentioned, we should also encourage a session to the Budapest Convention as an important step in furthering and strengthening the robust existing legal framework to address cyber crime. Third, we must find ways to improve and streamline our collective ability to share information and evidence across borders, while simultaneously protecting our citizens' privacy rights. To effectively combat crimes committed against our own citizens within our own borders, we increasingly depend on evidence that is stored outside our borders. We must all work to improve the mutual legal assistance process for sharing electronic evidence across borders. International cooperation also requires states to create effective central authorities for mutual legal assistance and extradition. A well-functioning MLA relationship requires adequate staffing of the central authority by trained professionals who are well-versed in the different channels of cooperation available, including with law enforcement. The central authority must be empowered to act on requests for assistance, waiting months or even years. For evidence critical to fast-moving investigations is dangerous and harmful to the safety and security of the people we serve. The status quo with respect to sharing evidence across borders is simply unsustainable. In the United States, we are acutely aware of the responsibility we bear in responding to mutual legal assistance requests. We have simplified the process whereby foreign authorities can obtain evidence from the United States, saving critical time, and streamlining complex procedures. And we have vastly increased staffing to respond to foreign requests for evidence. As a result, I am happy to report that the number of foreign assistance requests that we have granted increased by 532 percent between 2013 and 2016. Fourth, we must cooperate on extraditions to ensure that criminals are held to account for internet crimes that they commit across borders. When cyber criminals are arrested on a provisional arrest warrant, it is critical that unlike data on the internet, they are no longer allowed to move freely across borders. Instead, they should be kept from fleeing while extradition proceedings occur, and in all appropriate cases, they should be remanded to the requesting country to face justice. Some nations seek to block extraditions of their nationals from third countries in order to protect their cyber criminals. This is not acceptable. Fifth, we must work together to address the growth of data havens, that is, jurisdictions where criminal and other threat actors can commit crimes with relative impunity. No nation can claim leadership in the internet if it excuses its own citizens' crimes against other nation's citizens, either by refusing to honor lawful extradition requests or by refusing to respond to mutual legal assistance requests. Ironically, some of the nations that claim that a new cyber treaty architecture is necessary are the very nations that shield their cyber criminals. It is not a new cyber architecture that is necessary. What is necessary is a new commitment to enforce existing laws against cyber crime. We in law enforcement, and also our friends and partners in private industry, many of whom I know are here today and we welcome you, face immense challenges in detecting, disrupting and deterring the criminals who wreak havoc on our computers and networks. As we gather here over the next few days, let the events of recent weeks catalyze our conversation and remind us that there is truly no time to spare in making a renewed commitment by all nations to deny safe havens to cyber criminals. This conference represents a unique opportunity to express solidarity on this basic issue. Our time here is short, but our ambition to work together to protect our constituents is strong. Again, thank you, President Meng, for the opportunity to provide these remarks. And to all of you, I look forward to the productive days ahead. Thank you very much.