News you may have missed #0040

July 24, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Top court scolds German government over spy secrecy. Angela Merkel’s government has been rebuked by Germany’s most senior court for withholding information from a parliamentary inquiry into the role of Germany’s intelligence service (BND) in the detention of two Muslims from Germany at a US prison in Afghanistan.
  • Man implicated in Israeli spy affair says US government “tainted by anti-Semitism”. Larry Franklin, the former Defense Department analyst accused by the US government of handing classified US military information to two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists, has told Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that “some of the agencies of the US administration, and in particular the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are tainted by anti-Semitism”.
  • Defense contractors preparing private cyberwarriors? US Defense contractors such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), and others, are moving into the lucrative realm of cyberwarfare.

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Comment: Not So Fast, Cyberwarriors! [updated]

July 14, 2009 by 2 Comments

Hoekstra

Hoekstra

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Rep. Peter Hoekstra wants to launch a cyberwar against North Korea. The Republican from Michigan, who heads his party’s delegation on the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, urged the US government last Thursday to “launch a cyber attack” or at least increase international sanctions on Pyongyang. Hoekstra urged this in response to a series of mysterious cyber-attacks that paralyzed major South Korean and US government websites for three days earlier this month. And he’s not alone. Last Friday, ABC News technology pundit Michael Malone effectively echoed Hoekstra and warned that “enemies of freedom everywhere” could use cyberterrorism to kill untold numbers of Americans by remotely controlling “fetal monitoring systems, surgical equipment, robotic bomb demolition equipment and ICBMs”. But South Korean cybersecurity specialists, who intensely monitor North Korean information systems, and were the ones who actually informed their US counterparts of the unfolding cyber-attacks on July 4, are not so sure that Pyongyang was behind the attacks. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0024

July 11, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Guantánamo prisoner asked to spy on homeland radicals. Umar Abdulayev, from Tajikistan, who has been held in Guantánamo for seven years, claims in court filings that he was visited by Tajik intelligence agents in Guantánamo, who asked him to spy on Tajik Muslim radicals in exchange for his release. Abdulayev has refused the offer and has asked for asylum at a third country.
  • We were not hacked, says NZ spy agency. A New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) spokesman has denied the agency’s website was hacked on July 9. Those visiting the GCSB website on that day were presented with an error message.
  • Saudi charity lawyers ask federal judge to outlaw NSA wiretap program. Saudi-based charity Al-Haramain was taken to court in September 2004 by the US government, which accused it of maintaining terrorist links. But its lawyers have managed to reverse the case, and may now be close to getting a US federal judge to rule against warrantless NSA wiretapping.
  • Cyber attacks came from 16 countries. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) officials have disclosed that the cyberattacks that paralyzed major South Korean websites last weekend were mounted from at least 16 different countries. Earlier this week, NIS said it believed North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces were behind the attacks, which also affected US government websites.

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News you may have missed #0023

July 10, 2009 by Leave a comment

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Israel directs cyberwar resources against Iranian nuclear program

July 8, 2009 by 1 Comment

Ahmedinejad

Ahmadinejad

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
An Israeli cyberwarfare project that began in the late 1990s is a major tool in the Jewish state’s covert war on the Iranian nuclear program. A former member of the Israeli Knesset has anonymously confirmed the program’s existence to the Reuters news agency, while US experts said they view the clandestine project as “the likely new vanguard” in Israel’s attempts to hamper Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Israel’s cyberwarfare program is apparently encouraged by Washington’s resistance to an all-out military confrontation with Tehran, which includes US President Barack Obama’s rumored reluctance to endorse conventional air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. As intelNews has reported before, the Israeli cyberwarfare project is probably part of a wider Israeli operation, which British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has described as a covert “decapitation program”. The operation, which involves assassinations, front companies and bribing, among other tactics, is supplemented by an extensive CIA operation approved by President George W. Bush in early 2008 and “hand[ed] off to President […] Barack Obama”, according to The New York Times.

 

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Comment: Post-9/11 Intelligence Turf Wars Continue

March 13, 2009 by 1 Comment

Rod Beckstrom

Rod Beckstrom

By IAN ALLEN* | intelNews.org |
The stern assurances given to Americans after 9/11, that destructive turf wars between US intelligence agencies would stop, appear to be evaporating. Earlier this week, Rod Beckstrom, who headed the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced his resignation amidst a bitter row between the DHS and the National Security Agency (NSA) over the oversight of American cybersecurity. In a letter (.pdf) addressed to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, and carbon-copied to nearly every senior US intelligence and defense official, Beckstrom blasted the lack of “appropriate support [for NCSC] during the last administration”, as well as having to wrestle with “various roadblocks engineered within [DHS] by the Office of Management and Budget”. Most of all, Beckstrom, an industry entrepreneur who remained in his NCSC post for less than a year, accused the NSA of subverting NCSC’s cybersecurity role by trying to “subjugate” and “control” NCSC. 

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Israel’s covert war on Iranian nuclear program intensifies

February 21, 2009 by Leave a comment

Ahmedinejad

Ahmadinejad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Citing unnamed “US intelligence sources”, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has revealed what it calls a covert “decapitation program” by Israeli intelligence, targeting Iran’s nuclear program. The program has also been confirmed by Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor. Israel’s program is part of an international intelligence effort to hamper Iran’s nuclear program. As intelNews has reported before, this effort includes an extensive CIA operation approved by President George W. Bush in early 2008 and “hand[ed] off to President […] Barack Obama”.  The Israeli program, however, appears to be much more extensive than America’s, and includes assassinations, bribing, “front companies and double agents”, according to The Daily Telegraph. The most aggressive part of the scheme centers on “the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran’s atomic operations”, according to Ms. Bhalla. Read more of this post

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Analysis: US may lose its most important base in Afghan war

February 6, 2009 by Leave a comment

Bakiyev

Bakiyev

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
US Pentagon officials routinely describe the US Air Force base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, as “hugely important”. It became even more so in 2005, after the government of Uzbekistan shut down the US Air Force base in Karshi-Khanabad, under Russian pressure. Since then, the Manas airbase has become the “primary logistics hub” for the US military’s Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, as it offers US forces a vital northern supply line to Afghanistan “in the face of ongoing insurgent attacks along the Khyber Pass route through Pakistan”. Pentagon officials were therefore stunned when Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced last Tuesday that his government “has made the decision on ending the term for the American base on the territory of Kyrgyzstan and in the near future, this decision will be announced”. Read more of this post

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Comment: Israel Intensifies Information War

January 14, 2009 by 2 Comments

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
John Minto is well known in New Zealand’s political circles. In 2005, a documentary on the country’s most influential public figures positioned him firmly within the top 100. Earlier today, Minto accused Israeli military and security agencies of orchestrating cyber-attacks on New Zealand websites, including his own, that are critical of Israel’s ongoing incursion in Gaza. He also said that websites in Britain and elsewhere have had “similar experiences”, which he blamed on “a dedicated unit within the Israeli military which monitors and does its best to close down sites which are effective in organizing opposition to Israeli policies”. Read more of this post

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New revelations of CIA sabotage program in Iran

January 13, 2009 by 2 Comments

Ahmedinejad

Ahmadinejad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The New York Times has published a front-page exposé of an ongoing CIA operation to sabotage Iranian nuclear laboratories and installations. Citing “interviews over the past 15 months with current and former American officials, outside experts, international nuclear inspectors and European and Israeli officials” the paper reveals that President Bush authorized the CIA operation in early 2008, and will “hand [it] off to President-elect Barack Obama”. Bush reportedly has had to defend the covert program on at least one occasion against Israel’s insistence to launch air attacks on known Iranian nuclear sites. The CIA program is aimed at –among other things– “computer systems and other networks on which Iran relies”. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Should US cybersecurity be managed by the White House?

December 13, 2008 by Leave a comment

Ars Technica has published a well-written analysis of the recent report on US cybersecurity by the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency. It examines the question of whether it would be wise for US cybersecurity to be managed by the White House. It concludes that “[w]hile big-picture proposals for reorganizing US cybersecurity efforts tend to grab headlines, it’s likely to be easier to establish consensus around some […] more specific proposals […] such as merging ‘national security’ and ‘homeland security’ advisory functions that bear on network security”, and that “it may make more sense” at this point in time “to focus on these less sexy reforms first”. The article is available here. [IA]

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Interesting questions about the Cyber Security Committee’s report

December 8, 2008 by Leave a comment

After the recent stir caused by purported cyber-attacks that struck the US Pentagon’s computers in October, news has emerged that the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency has finally revealed its findings about the future of online governmental security. The Commission, whose panel “includes executives, high-ranking military officers and intelligence officials, leading specialists in computer security, and two members of Congress”, spent the last few months visiting computer labs at the National Security Agency as well as being briefed “in closed-door sessions by top officials from Pentagon, CIA, and British spy agency MI5”. Read more of this post

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Russians deny cyber-attacks, accuse US of hypocrisy

December 5, 2008 by Leave a comment

On November 28 we reported on conflicting and muddled reports in the US media about a purported cyber-attack that had struck the Pentagon’s computers during the previous month. According to The Los Angeles Times, the attack “raised potential implications for national security” that were considered important enough to brief the President. The paper further claimed that the attack originated in Russia and appeared “designed specifically to target military networks”. Yesterday the Russian Foreign Ministry struck back at the allegation, calling it “a fabrication”. It also reminded observers that the Russian delegation initiated a formal resolution on international IT security at the 63rd UN Assembly, back in September of 2008. Interestingly, the resolution was almost unanimously approved by Assembly members. The only vote against it? You guessed it: the US of A. Could it be that the US, which has been building its own advanced cyber-attack arsenal since the mid-1990s, has more to gain from international IT insecurity than do its adversaries? [JF]
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US President briefed about severe cyber-attack on Pentagon

November 28, 2008 by Leave a comment

Conflicting and muddled reports have emerged in the US media about a purported cyber-attack that struck the Pentagon’s computers last month. The only thing that appears certain at this point is that the attack “raised potential implications for national security” that were considered important enough to brief the President. It also appears that the malicious software-based attack severely affected computer networks at CentCom, which oversees US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to one report, the software originated in Russia and appeared “designed specifically to target military networks”. Another report claims the attack actually originated in China, although “[m]ilitary electronics experts have not pinpointed the source or motive of the attack”. The pattern of the reports appears to point to yet another case of “the Pentagon once again has no idea what’s the matter with their computer networks so they’re simply blaming the usual suspects (Russia and China) hoping to deflect attention from the dire security standards in government computer networks”. [JF]

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