The Federal Bureau of Investigation is tapping Silicon Valley for help eradicating crime. Like enterprises, the FBI is realizing how data analytics can speed it to crucial insights. It is taking some cues from enterprise analytics teams and also struggling to fit made-for-business software to its own mission.

“What we’re used to doing is using the FBI special agent as the main tool of our investigations,” said M.K. Palmore (pictured), head of the FBI San Francisco Cyber Security Branch and assistant special agent-in-charge. “In the cyber world, we’ve had to add some pieces to that.”

Palmore spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Open Systems “The Future Is Crystal Clear With Security and SD-WAN” event in Las Vegas. They discussed the FBI’s use of data analysis, its efforts to create a more agile culture, and its role in enterprise security breech investigations. (* Disclosure below.)

Any startups want to purpose-build software for the FBI?

The FBI has introduced special training for cyber agents who are charged with investigating intrusions. It also brings computer scientists and data analysts to bear on investigations. “Everyone’s at the table on these investigations, bringing different aspects of the investigation together,” Palmore said.

They often bring a confusing mess of data points to the table. (The FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director recently told an audience at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas that the bureau is in the midst of a “data crisis.”) The FBI is striving to adopt technologies that piece them all into a picture in time to effectively fight crime.

No, the FBI doesn’t have access to decades-ahead-of-the-curve data tech enterprises only dream of. It basically uses the same stuff as businesses trying to see the future in a sea of data. And it hits the same hurdles.

“We face the same challenges as any private organization in terms of how we intake the data, how the data’s organized, how it is that we then retrieve the data, look at it, how … the different data points relate to one another,” Palmore stated.

It has the added challenge of having to fit products made for the private sector to its unique needs.

As for enterprises, Palmore believes they ought to be thinking more about the FBI. They should see security breeches as attacks on the enterprise itself, not just IT. The FBI needs to be brought into the fold earlier on, he added.

“We aren’t always brought in as early in a breech investigation as we would like to be. And it’s valuable minutes, valuable days … lost sometimes in that transnational process,” Palmore concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Open Systems — The Future Is Crystal Clear With Security and SD-WAN. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Open Systems “The Future Is Crystal Clear With Security and SD-WAN” event. Neither Open Systems AG, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE