The FBI Cyber Division rolled out Operation Winter SHIELD, a multiweek campaign offering ten priority cyber defenses to strengthen private‑sector and infrastructure resilience against attacks that enable large‑scale fraud. The initiative packages proactive guidance and outreach to reduce exploitable vulnerabilities commonly abused by scammers and cybercriminals.

Operation Winter SHIELD is a coordinated, multiweek effort from the FBI Cyber Division to elevate baseline defenses across critical infrastructure and private companies, with a clear objective of reducing the attack surface exploited by fraudsters and financially motivated cybercriminals. The campaign enumerates ten priority cyber defenses—covering patching, multi‑factor authentication, logging and incident response practices—backed by actionable guidance and outreach to sector partners. Framed as lessons learned from recent investigations, Winter SHIELD emphasizes cross‑sector collaboration, threat‑sharing, and proactive remediation to limit opportunities for phishing, credential theft, ransomware deployment and automated fraud campaigns. The initiative includes technical advisories, playbooks for small and medium enterprises, and engagement with state and local government entities to shore up weaker links that often become vectors for fraud. By promoting consistent implementation of core controls, the FBI aims to make large‑scale scam facilitation more difficult and to accelerate detection and response when intrusions occur. The campaign also signals heightened enforcement attention and encourages organizations to adopt best practices to protect customers and stakeholders from fraud exposure.