Cyber-attack

US Intelligence Contractors Working for UAE, Blurring Lines of Loyalty

There have been several disturbing trends being seen in the Middle East involving U.S. contractors working for local governments. There were reports of former Delta Force commandos working in Yemen. Even more so was the bombshell two days ago about American intelligence professionals working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who conducted offensive cyber warfare that even targeted Americans.

When these contractors worked for UAE under Project Maven, they were helping the host nation target their enemies. But a few years in, Maven was moved a new cybersecurity firm called DarkMatter and the scope changed. They were then spying on human rights activists, journalists, and even American civilians.

Reuters published a bombshell story on Wednesday, January 30, based on interviews with participants and leaked documents, revealing how former National Security Agency contractors set up an offensive cyber-espionage unit in a converted mansion in the United Arab Emirates. The targets of this computer hacking unit included journalists, human rights activists, and a number of American citizens.
Previously, BuzzFeed broke a story about American special operations veterans contracting for the UAE in Yemen. NEWSREP followed up on this story with an exclusive interview with Dale Comstock, a former Delta Force operator who worked on that contract in a direct action capacity. The former Green Berets, SEALs, and Delta operators were assigned targets by a UAE intelligence officer. Those targets were ostensibly members of al-Qaeda, but the lines blurred as some of those targets appeared to be political rather than military in nature.
The Reuters story revealed how former NSA contractor Lori Stroud worked for an office in Booz Allen Hamilton, an American management and IT consulting firm, when their reputation was tarnished by Edward Snowden stealing classified material, leaking it to foreign adversaries, and then defecting to Russia. Stroud was later offered a job working in the UAE alongside other former U.S. intelligence officials in what was called Project Raven.
Upon arrival, she was given an in-brief about how Project Raven’s mission was domestic cybersecurity—protecting the UAE from electronic intrusions. Immediately after the briefing, she was told that this was a cover story and was then briefed on their real mission: offensive cyber operations, essentially the electronic equivalent of the direct-action missions the former SOF soldiers were participating in under the auspices of the same government in Yemen.
The American employees of Project Raven were apparently assured throughout the operations that their work was approved by the National Security Agency, a claim that appears to be a lie when subjected to even the most cursory scrutiny. Stroud told Reuters, “It was incredible because there weren’t these limitations like there were at the NSA. There wasn’t that bullshit red tape.” In several instances, she appears to make justifications and dissociation from the facts of what was happening at that time.
Stroud reached her breaking point when she realized that American citizens were being hidden in their target deck. She was fired for asking too many questions and sent home. The former NSA employee who tried to downplay the targeting of American citizens was the same who initially brought Stroud on with Project Raven and assured her it was approved by the NSA, according to Reuters. Marc Baier had worked for the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations office.
Not only does the Reuters story about Project Raven have echoes of the past one about SOF contractors working for the UAE, there are similar themes to be found in NEWSREP’s story about TigerSwan working at the Dakota Access Pipeline. In that case, young veteran soldiers and Marines found themselves working for a retired Delta Force sergeant major.
Because soldiers are institutionalized to accept a military hierarchy, they are liable to follow directions as though they were still working within a military framework even while, in reality, they are working for a commercial endeavor. These employees will often follow orders on the assumption that they are legitimate and vetted by some kind of legal review. The same was true of Stroud, who had been institutionalized within the intelligence community, and initially believed what Marc Baier had told her based on social trust.
The message to members of the special operations and intelligence community, the lesson learned from all of this, is that when they leave government service and go into the private sector, they need to realize they are no longer working under U.S. title codes, they need to have attorneys review contracts before they sign them, and they need to ask their employer difficult questions about dubious tasks.

To read the entire article, click here:

Photo: Wikipedia

Hamas Using Fake Dating Apps, World Cup, Honeypots to Spy on Israeli Troops

Hamas hacked into hundreds of smartphones of Israeli soldiers using fake dating and World Cup apps in order to gain sensitive information about the Israeli military and bases around the Gaza strip.

The IDF’s Military Intelligence conducted an investigation which found that the 11 Hamas operatives (three approached soldiers on WhatsApp, eight approached soldiers on Facebook) were an intelligence network of the Hamas terrorist organization which asked the soldiers to download applications which compromised their cell phones with Trojan horse viruses.

The apps allowed malicious software controlled by Hamas to be planted into Android smartphones, enabling militants in the Strip to access pictures, phone numbers and email addresses of soldiers posted close to the border, and even allowed Hamas to control the phones’ cameras and microphones remotely.
In a number of cases, Hamas has been able to film what was happening on Israel Defense Forces bases without the soldiers being aware their phones had been hacked. Beginning in January 2018, the military’s information security department has received complaints from soldiers and commanders about attempts by suspicious people on social networks recommending soldiers to download apps from the official Google Play Store. Soldiers who downloaded the app immediately gave Hamas access to all the information on their phone.
The military began examining these apps and swiftly discovered that Hamas was behind them, and that it was operating fake Facebook profiles to build trust with soldiers since 2017 to get the soldiers to download the apps.
The operation by the unit responsible for information security was dubbed “operation broken heart.”
Hamas also used a fitness app to identify the phone numbers of soldiers who went jogging near the Gaza border. The minute Hamas had these numbers, it began sending the soldiers, and others, requests to download their “Trojan Horse” apps.

Both male and female soldiers were approached with these tactics, while most soldiers immediately informed their commanders, several did not. It was learned that the female soldiers were quicker to cut off communications with the Hamas operatives than the men.

Despite this, the apps in question remain online.

To read the entire article from Haaretz, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Maryland Voters: “No, We Got This” Reject Chelsea Manning’s Bid

Chelse Manning’s longshot bid for a U.S. Senate seat from Maryland came to an ignominious end this week, as she and several other Democratic challengers were routed by incumbent Senator Ben Cardin. Cadrin is seeking his third term as a Senator after serving in the House for 20 years. Cadrin tallied 80.4 percent of the vote.

Tony Campbell of Baltimore County defeated an even bigger slate of 10 other candidates for the Republican nomination.

Manning was a former Army intelligence analyst, named Bradley Manning who was sentenced to jail for leaking around 700,000 classified documents. President Donald Trump called her an “ungrateful traitor.”

With a wave of “progressive” candidates seeking election during the 2018 midterm elections, none was as divisive as Chelsea Manning. Since being released from prison, she has been quite active on social media, especially Twitter espousing liberal issues and with a healthy dose of emojis and usually followed by the hashtag #wegotthis.

Seen on the left as the darling of Wikileaks and a whistleblower, the 30-year old championed the rights for transgender’s rights and went on a hunger strike until the Army acquiesced and allowed her to have the surgery to become a woman. However, her campaign barely got off the ground.

The right sees Manning as a traitor who caused irreparable damage to the military by leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, for which she was sentenced to 35-years in prison. Her sentence was commuted by President Obama after just seven years of confinement just before he left office. But many on the right found it ludicrous that someone convicted of a serious crime was even allowed to run.

She did very little campaigning in Maryland, running on a platform of abolishing prisons, freeing inmates and abolishing the Immigrations and Customs agency calling it, “literally the new gestapo,” while likewise eliminating our national borders. Her campaign generated no campaign war chest, no debates, and very few candidate forums. In a state with so many government and defense workers the fact that she even got the minuscule 5.7 percent of the vote (nearly 30,000 votes) was surprising.

Manning generated the wrong kind of publicity for her first campaign about a month ago when she went on social media claiming that “we can’t expect any change thru the upcoming elections – the primaries are rigged.” Worse, shortly after that, Manning posted a picture of herself standing at a window ledge with just the words, “I’m sorry.”

A follow-on post set off more alarm bells. She added, “I’m not really cut out for this world — i tried adapting to this world out here but i failed you — i couldn’t do this anymore,” which caused a minor uproar on social media among her followers. Her friends and supporters urged people to give her space… but in the middle of a Senate campaign?

Manning announced this week that she was forced to step back from active campaigning to prioritize her health. “I found the space and the treatment I need to heal, with close friends by my side to provide love and support,” she said.

After her suicidal call for help, some of her friends and supporters called the police to do a wellness check. That caused another minor social media uproar when the security camera of Manning’s apartment ended up on social media.

The footage shows that three officers have weapons drawn while a fourth has a Taser. A Police spokesman, Captain Paul Starks said that the decision to draw weapons “depends on the officer” who “makes the decision based on circumstances that are affecting that officer in that specific situation.” Manning, however, tweeted that “this is what a police state looks like, Guns drawn during a wellness check.”

But after the election, she was back on social media once again. Thanking her supporters, she reminded them about the “power we have as individuals.”

She added, “Last year, when I was released from prison, I emerged into a world of hate and injustice. I traveled across the country. I saw immigrants, people of color, queer and trans folk under attack. I saw our most vulnerable communities living under a de facto military occupation of violent, heavily-armed police forces. I’ve seen what a military occupation looks like first-hand: I participated in the U.S. occupation of Iraq from 2009-2010.

Witnessing how scary and unjust the world has become drove me to run for U.S. Senate in my home state of Maryland,” she wrote.

“We started this campaign knowing it was a long-shot,” Manning wrote in her concession after the primary. “But, after spending hours and hours knocking on doors and making phone calls, I’m convinced that the change people truly need goes beyond what our corrupt two-party system is willing to offer.”

Back in May when her campaign wasn’t gaining any momentum, she was coming to the realization that she was far from ready for a national seat of any kind, but she blasted the current system and called for major change and activism.

Manning may be out of the running but this doesn’t mean that we’ve heard the last of her. She has been stating that her activism will not end. It is worth wondering aloud if the left which made her a cause célèbre during her incarceration and subsequent release will continue to support her.

Or will they dump her as they look for the next big cause it seems daily?

Photo: Wikipedia

Chinese Hackers Steal Sensitive Data on US Submarines

Sensitive data about U.S. submarine research has been hacked from an unnamed government contractor by Chinese hackers working for China’s Ministry of State Security or MSS.

Included in the loss were six hundred fourteen gigabytes of data which were stolen, including submarine communications data and information on a secretive project known as Sea Dragon.

The Washington Post, citing anonymous American officials, reports that the data was stored on the contractor’s unclassified network, though officials said the material could be considered classified and was highly sensitive. The compromised data could give China important edges in both technology and tactics at sea, including in its conflict with a half-dozen nations including Japan and Indonesia over territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Little is known about the classified Sea Dragon initiative, but it is an underwater technology that the Defense Department has described as introducing a “disruptive offensive capability,” according to the Post, and which some defense experts regard as a key component in America’s precautions for conflict with China. Submarine weapons are key for China’s military ambitions, but Chinese cyber-incursions in recent years have nabbed designs and data for everything from advanced fighter jets to missile systems.
Former Navy officer and NSA analyst John Schindler, writing for the Observer, highlights the loss of cryptographic information used in submarine communications. Those techniques allow coordination of forces at sea, and their compromise can lend an enemy a huge tactical advantage in any conflict. As a precedent, Schindler cites the Allied compromise of the German Enigma cipher, and the resulting demolition of Nazi U-Boats that hastened the end of World War II—though it’s important to note that the Germans didn’t know the code had been cracked, and the U.S. may be able to react to the recent hack by changing codes and practices to keep messages out of Chinese hands.

The Chinese said that they were not aware of any such operation. Not much is known on Sea Dragon, however, the Pentagon has asked for or spent more than $300 million dollars for the project since late 2015 and said it planned to begin underwater testing by September.

Whether or not this latest hack sets that timetable back remains to be seen.

To read the entire article from Fortune, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Facebook Allowed Chinese National Security Threat to Access User Data

In the latest flap over the Facebook ongoing saga, the social media giant allowed a Chinese firm charged by the federal government as a national security threat to access to user information, without the consent of the individual.

Facebook confirmed to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate intel panel, the social media giant entered into a third-party agreement with Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies Co., one of roughly 60 other device manufacturers the company partnered with to help replicate a “Facebook-like” experience on other operating systems.
“Concerns about Huawei aren’t new – they were widely publicized beginning in 2012, when the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a well-read report on the close relationships between the Chinese Communist Party and equipment makers like Huawei. The news that Facebook provided privileged access to Facebook’s API to Chinese device makers like Huawei and TCL raises legitimate concerns, and I look forward to learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers,” Warner said in a statement.
A Facebook spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The New York Times reported on Monday that Facebook, as part of its partnership with device manufacturers, allowed companies to access data from friends of an individual user, sometimes without explicit consent.
Facebook officials told the New York Times it would wind down its partnership with Huawei by the end of the week.
The federal government has sought to crack down on the U.S. operations of both Huawei and fellow Chinese-owned ZTE Corp.
The Commerce Department in April issued a denial order prohibiting any U.S. company from selling products to ZTE for seven years.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that ZTE agreed to pay a $1.7 billion fine to lift the ban, but a Department of Commerce spokesperson denied such a deal was reached.
“No definitive agreement has been signed by both parties,” the spokesperson said.

The Pentagon has halted the sales of either companies products on military bases and the FCC has sought to limit the companies access to rural telecom carriers.

To read the entire article from Washington Examiner, click here:

Photo: AP

Suspect for CIA Hacking Tools Dump in Jail on Child Pornography

The suspect in the CIA’s hacking tools release onto WikiLeaks is a former agency computer programmer, a black eye for the organization as it details all of the cyber weapons arsenals according to court documents that have been released.

Joshua Adam Schulte, the former agency programmer has not been charged with stealing or passing along the secret documents, however. Instead, he is being held in Riker Island jail on child pornography charges as the government investigates how the files were spirited off to WikiLeaks, which posted the stolen documents in March 2017.

Meanwhile, Schulte’s lawyers have protested that numerous government search warrants that gave investigators access to the suspect’s personal electronic devices were based on false information and failed to turn up “any connection to the WikiLeaks investigation,” according to a court hearing transcript from January.
Government prosecutors disputed the characterization, countering in the hearing that Schulte “remains a target of that investigation.”
Schulte first came to the attention of investigators just days after WikiLeaks initially posted the cache, known as Vault 7, which contained roughly 8,000 documents detailing how the CIA could transform smartphones and even internet-connected TVs into spying devices.
“The FBI believed that Mr. Schulte was involved in that leak,” one of Schulte’s attorneys said, according to the court transcript. The Washington Post first reported the court filing linking Schulte to the leak, and the Post and The New York Times reported his CIA employment.
If Shulte is found to be responsible for the Vault 7 theft, it would represent a major victory for U.S. intelligence agencies, which have struggled to keep a lid on their most sensitive documents in recent years — and to publicly explain how the most embarrassing breaches occurred.
Recent leaks from both the CIA and the National Security Agency have particularly rattled the intelligence community as they came after the Obama administration installed new provisions to clamp down on insiders shuttling secrets out of the building.

The problem with prosecuting a trial such as this within the court system is that in bringing the evidence in open court will normally entail revealing even more government secrets. They’ll hold the suspect on these unrelated charges until they decide how much information they plan to release.

To read the entire article from Politico, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

European Spy Chiefs Warn of Russian Hybrid Threats

The Russian meddling in the United States, as well as other elections, is now going to be the norm, in addition to cyber warfare, disinformation campaigns and more traditional espionage the European heads of intelligence warned on Monday.

The Sergei Skripal assassination attempt in the UK is a prime example. After the attack, it was quickly followed by Russian denials and then nearly 30 alternate theories being spread by Russian propaganda using social media among other means.

“Our respect for Russia’s people … cannot and must not stop us from calling out and pushing back on the Kremlin’s flagrant breaches of international rules,” the head of Britain’s MI5 spy agency, Andrew Parker, told an intelligence gathering in Berlin.
“Whatever nonsense they conjure up, the case is clear,” said Parker.
He later told reporters that since allied governments were first briefed on Russia’s involvement in the attack by the British government, “the case, if anything, has got stronger since then.”
Germany’s domestic intelligence chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, said his agency, known as BfV, blames Russian authorities for orchestrating a persistent cyberattack aimed at stealing sensitive data so it can be used in future intelligence campaigns, such as what happened with the Democratic National Committee emails leaked during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.
Sir Julian King, the EU’s security commissioner, warned that social media had “turbocharged” state actors’ ability to spread disinformation, citing the recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica’s gathering of personal data from Facebook users to help manipulate elections.
King warned of future threats posed by sophisticated fake videos that are undiscernible from real footage, calling it an example of a “deadly weapon of mass disinformation” that societies need to find ways of becoming resilient to.
He also said the European Commission is working with social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter to better inform users about why they are seeing certain posts and who is paying for them, to help protect against disinformation campaigns by groups or governments outside the country.

The European spy agencies have vowed to work together and cooperate against this new and insidious form of warfare. One worrisome subject for all the agencies is the possible funding of extremist groups aiming to divide European societies, and they are preaching for greater awareness of hybrid attacks to counter any threats.

To read the entire article from Associated Press, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Russian Hackers Disguised as ISIS, Threaten US Military Spouses

In a brazen false-flag operation, a number of Russian hackers, the same ones who supposedly tried to influence the U.S. presidential election, posed as Islamic State terrorists and threatened the lives of U.S. military spouses.

Army wife Angela Ricketts was soaking in a bubble bath in her Colorado home, leafing through a memoir, when a message appeared on her iPhone from hackers threatening to slaughter her family.
“Dear Angela!” the Facebook message read. “Bloody Valentine’s Day!”
“We know everything about you, your husband and your children,” the message continued, claiming that the hackers operating under the flag of Islamic State militants had penetrated her computer and her phone. “We’re much closer than you can even imagine.”
Ricketts was one of five military wives who received death threats from the self-styled CyberCaliphate on the morning of February 10, 2015. The warnings led to days of anguished media coverage of Islamic State militants’ online reach.
Except it wasn’t IS.
The Associated Press has found evidence that the women were targeted not by jihadists but by the same Russian hacking group that intervened in the American election and exposed the emails of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta.
But that consensus never filtered through to the women involved, many of whom were convinced they had been targeted by Islamic State sympathizers right up until the AP contacted them.
“Never in a million years did I think that it was the Russians,” said Ricketts, an author and advocate for veterans and military families. She called the revelation “mind blowing.”
“It feels so hilarious and insidious at the same time.”

The resultant play on the media by Ricketts, who is very vocal and visible on social media gave the hackers exactly what they were looking for.

To read the entire article from Times of Israel, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Trump Pushing for New Branch of the Military: Space Forces

President Donald Trump has again said that the realm of outer space is one where the U.S. military needs to be involved in and wants a new branch of the military dedicated to it.

The President stumped his idea in the White House while hosting members of the West Point football team for a “Space Force” branch to the US military, an idea that isn’t popular with the Pentagon.

“You will be part of the five proud branches of the United States Armed Forces — Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and the Coast Guard. And we’re actually thinking of a sixth, and that would be the Space Force,” Trump said while presenting the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy to the Army football team in the Rose Garden.
“You probably haven’t even heard that. I’m just telling you now. We’re getting very big in space, both militarily and for other reasons, and we are seriously thinking of the Space Force,” he said.
“Space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea,” Trump said at the time. “We may even have a space force.”
The endorsement was praised by Rep. Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican who’s the chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee.
“I am thrilled that the Space Corps idea is gaining traction at the White House. Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN) and I have worked tirelessly on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Strategic Forces subcommittee level on the need for a Space Corps outside of the Air Force for over two years now,” Rogers said in a statement to CNN.
“Russia and China are surpassing us in Space capabilities and we need to dedicate a separate force solely with a Space mission. The future of war will be fought in Space, and we must stay diligent and ahead of other countries for our own national security,” he added.
That proposal, which was included in the House version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, would have set up a Space Corps in the mold of the Marine Corps, which is a separate military branch that’s housed within the Navy.
But despite support from House Armed Services Committee leaders — including Chairman Mac Thornberry, a Texas Republican — the plan was nixed from the final version of the $700 billion bipartisan defense policy bill, which was ultimately signed by Trump in December, due to opposition from the Senate and Pentagon leaders, who argued it needed more study.
However, congressional negotiators did include a series of management and procedural changes to the existing Air Force space programs in an effort to “begin fixing the broken national security space enterprise.”

Part of the reasons the Pentagon isn’t warm to it is turf and money. The Air Force considers space to be part of their realm and none of the other services want to compete with another service over budget money.

To read the entire article from CNN, click here:

Photo courtesy Video screenshot CNN

TechVets Teaching Veterans About the Cyber Security Trade

For many veterans, the prospect of finding a good job is difficult when leaving the service as many of their skills don’t translate into the private sector.

Finally, something is being done about matching the skillsets of military veterans with technology and the skills shortage in cybersecurity.

In the past 12 months alone, there have been 15,000 service leavers adding up to a total 908,000 working age veterans in the UK of whom 220,000 are unemployed and inactive. Moreover, only 4% of veterans work in ICT, a figure that is 20% less than non-veterans.
This imbalance is matched by the drastic skills shortage in UK cybersecurity. According to a report by ESG and ISSA, 45% of organizations claim to have a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills, 70% of cybersecurity professionals say the cybersecurity skills shortage has had an impact on their organization and 22% said their cybersecurity team was not large enough for the size of their organization.
A new social enterprise TechVets was recently launched in the UK with ths support of veteran influencers, investors and tech business leaders.
The not-for-profit initiative provides a bridge for veterans and service leavers into cyber security and technology to foster greater dialogue and creating connections between veterans and the technology and cyber security sectors, and to highlight the strong mutual benefits.
TechVets wants to support veterans and service leavers from Defence who would like to build on their transferable skills and develop new ones to operate and work in technology and cybersecurity sectors.
As well as providing free cyber-security training, TechVets is working with industry partners to secure employment for their cohort. TechVets will take no recruitment fees for this service.
TechVets will work closely with the UK government, the MOD’s the Career Transition Partnership, military charities, and industry champions to build the UK’s tech and cyber sectors with the unrealised human potential of the UK veteran community.
Those UK veterans and service leaders interested in joining the not-for-profits TechVets, can register at TechVets.co if they would like to join the first cohort for cyber training or get advice on how their experience and skillsets would be most valued.

This program in the UK relies on the veterans known qualities in leadership, problem-solving and crisis management that were forged in the military. U.S. companies should take note.

To read the entire article from Forbes, click here: