Cyber Conflict, Chaos and Calamity

Posted on June 23, 2015June 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

There have been several Congressional hearings on cyber-terrorism, yet with such an emergency and threat, no solution is forthcoming.

From AEI: “America’s intelligence leaders have made clear the biggest threat today is cyber and counterintelligence. Who are the largest perpetrators of these types of attacks? The intelligence report singles out Russia and China as first examples. These nations have “highly sophisticated cyber programs” and are regularly conducting “politically motivated” attacks. What are they up to exactly? Countries such as China are “reconnoitering and developing access to US critical infrastructure systems, which might be quickly exploited for disruption if an adversary’s intent became hostile.” Back in 2013, Verizon released a report detailing Chinese hackers lurking around inside American industrial control systems—the cyber equivalent to casing a robbery target. In 2014 alone, the FBI investigated a likely Russian hacking campaign against American banking backbone JP Morgan, while two cybersecurity firms blamed Iran for a major campaign against US critical infrastructure like major airliners, medical universities, and energy companies. As the year ended, the US government publicly accused North Korea of a devastating cyberattack against Sony.”

When of Office of National Intelligence produced a report, the first chapter is on cyber threats.

“Risk. Despite ever-improving network defenses, the diverse possibilities for remote hacking intrusions, supply chain operations to insert compromised hardware or software, and malevolent activities by human insiders will hold nearly all ICT systems at risk for years to come. In short, the cyber threat cannot be eliminated; rather, cyber risk must be managed. Moreover, the risk calculus employed by some private sector entities does not adequately account for foreign cyber threats or the systemic interdependencies between different critical infrastructure sectors.

Costs. During 2014, we saw an increase in the scale and scope of reporting on malevolent cyber activity that can be measured by the amount of corporate data stolen or deleted, personally identifiable information (PII) compromised, or remediation costs incurred by US victims. “

The stakes are higher than anyone will admit, most of all the White House. The Office of Personnel Management hack of personnel files now appears to exceed 18 million individuals. “FBI Director James Comey gave the 18 million estimate in a closed-door briefing to Senators in recent weeks, using the OPM’s own internal data, according to U.S. officials briefed on the matter. Those affected could include people who applied for government jobs, but never actually ended up working for the government.”

Just announced as a possible additional agency falling victim to hacking is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). What is chilling about this probability is all government reports, records and communications are by law to be maintained by NARA., even classified material.

EXCLUSIVE: Signs of OPM Hack Turn Up at Another Federal Agency

The National Archives and Records Administration recently detected unauthorized activity on three desktops indicative of the same hack that extracted sensitive details on millions of current and former federal employees, government officials said Monday. The revelation suggests the breadth of one of the most damaging cyber assaults known is wider than officials have disclosed.

The National Archives’ own intrusion-prevention technology successfully spotted the so-called indicators of compromise during a scan this spring, said a source involved in the investigation, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the incident. The discovery was made soon after the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team published signs of the wider attack — which targeted the Office of Personnel Management — to look for at agencies, according to NARA.

It is unclear when NARA computers were breached. Suspected Chinese-sponsored cyberspies reportedly had been inside OPM’s networks for a year before the agency discovered what happened in April. Subsequently, the government uncovered a related attack against OPM that mined biographical information on individuals who have filed background investigation forms to access classified secrets.

The National Archives has found no evidence intruders obtained “administrative access,” or took control, of systems, but files were found in places they did not belong, the investigator said.

NARA “systems” and “applications” were not compromised, National Archives spokeswoman Laura Diachenko emphasized to Nextgov, “but we detected IOCs,” indicators of compromise, “on three workstations, which were cleaned and re-imaged,” or reinstalled.

“Other files found seemed to be legitimate,” such as those from a Microsoft website, she said. “We have requested further guidance from US-CERT on how to deal with these” and are still awaiting guidance on how to proceed.

It will take additional forensics assessments to determine whether attackers ever “owned” the National Archives computers, the investigator said.

Diachenko said, “Continued analysis with our monitoring and forensic tools has not detected any activity associated with a hack,” including alerts from the latest version of a governmentwide network-monitoring tool called EINSTEIN 3A.

EINSTEIN, like NARA’s own intrusion-prevention tool, is now configured to detect the tell-tale signs of the OPM attack.

“OPM isn’t the only agency getting probed by this group,” said John Prisco, president of security provider Triumphant, the company that developed the National Archives’ tool. “It could be happening in lots of other agencies.”

Prisco said he learned of the incident at a security industry conference June 9, from an agency official the company has worked with for years.

“They told us that they were really happy because we stopped the OPM attack in their agency,” Prisco said.

The malicious operation tries to open up ports to the Internet, so it can excise information, Prisco said.

“It’s doing exploration work laterally throughout the network and then it’s looking for a way to communicate what it finds back to its server,” he added.

Homeland Security officials on Monday would not confirm or deny the situation at the National Archives. DHS spokesman S.Y. Lee referred to the department’s earlier statement about the OPM hack: “DHS has shared information regarding the potential incident with all federal chief information officers to ensure that all agencies have the knowledge they need to defend against this cybersecurity incident.”

The assault on OPM represents the seventh raid on national security-sensitive or federal personnel information over the past year.

Well-funded hackers penetrated systems at the State Department, the White House, U.S. Postal Service and, previously in March 2014, OPM. Intruders also broke into networks twice at KeyPoint Government Solutions, an OPM background check provider, and once at USIS, which conducted most of OPM’s employee investigations until last summer.

On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the OPM incident that, among other things, will examine the possibility that hackers got into the agency’s systems by using details taken from the contractors.

Is Putin Afraid of $50 Billion or Russia’s Future?

Posted on June 23, 2015June 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

Vladimir Putin is obviously corrupt and aggressive and countless world leaders maintain the evidence, include the International Criminal Court at the Hague. In 2014, an international court has awarded the shareholders of the now-defunct Yukos oil company more than $50 billion, ruling that the Russian government wrongly seized the company from one of the country’s most powerful oligarchs.

The award by a tribunal in The Hague — the largest ever in international arbitration — is the latest chapter in a dispute that began in 2003 when Russian authorities arrested Yukos’s chairman, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, and sold off his company over the next several years.

There are also negative implications for Russia was the European Court of Human Rights finding that Armenia had occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and was thus liable for the destruction there. Regardless of the merits of each side in that war, there is no reason why Ukraine cannot now appear before that court to find Russia guilty of occupying Ukraine and therefore liable for the destruction and loss of life there. Moreover, upon invading Crimea, Moscow immediately seized all the assets of Ukraine’s energy explorations there and took them over (that may have been a motive for the invasion of Crimea).

Another matter is the legal and political action against Moscow, not only by international courts but by the European Commission for there is no doubt that Russia’s projected Turk Stream pipeline will contain some of that gas as do Russian oil shipments to Europe, If the Commission could block South Stream on the grounds of its failure to conform to EU guidelines, it can certainly block a pipeline that utilizes the fruits of unmitigated aggression. And courts can easily declare those as stolen assets and impose penalties on Russia and anyone benefiting from them.

Then there is the case of the Malaysian flight 17 that was shot down which continues to be investigated.

The case against the Russian aggression continues to build and it is questionable whether Putin has any concerns on how this will play out for the future of the country or whether he takes it all in stride for a larger mission.

The matter of Crimea has not subsided nor has it been settled. From the Daily Beast in part:

‘Under occupation Crimea has become a cesspool of human rights violations, but a new report offers some hope. An international team of lawyers, working with Razom, the Ukrainian-American human rights nonprofit, compiled investigations by Human Rights Watch, the U.N., and other leading organizations as well as accounts from journalists and Crimean residents, into a single report— Human Rights on Occupied Territory: Case of Crimea. The 68-page report is conveniently structured to provide a clear legal framework for Crimeans and policymakers to bring Russian aggression to justice. It also provides a section called “Human Rights Protection Guide,” which includes peaceful resistance tactics including some used during the Soviet Union.’

Defense Secretary Ash Carter is on a Eastern Europe tour as positioning of military equipment is occurring in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.

From the WSJ:

‘The equipment, which includes a total of 250 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers, is headed to temporary sites in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, Mr. Carter said here, flanked by his counterparts from three of the most anxious Baltic nations; Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

The full complement of equipment, which includes noncombat related cars and trucks and other equipment for an armored brigade combat team for as many as 5,000 troops, includes roughly 1,200 vehicles, according to a senior military official.

“American rotational forces need to more quickly and easily participate in training and exercises in Europe,” Mr. Carter told reporters in Tallinn.

The long-awaited move won’t place American troops in those temporary bases, even though Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had specifically requested that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization do so. Instead, American rotational forces, which have been used for months for a series of exercises called Operation Atlantic Resolve, would fall in on the equipment housed at the different sites across the six nations. The idea is to save shipping costs for the Pentagon, which has had to move equipment to and fro for each exercise. But basing the equipment at the sites also helps demonstrate American resolve in the region since Russia annexed Crimea last year.’

POTUS Approves U.S. Troops Sharing Base with Iran

Posted on June 22, 2015June 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

Cant make this up…Iran has been an enemy of the United States for decades and now our uniformed personnel in Iraq are forced to share an air base, Taqqadum, in Anbar. This is not sitting well with one senator and frankly, we should be screaming about it. What is worse, is the Joint Chiefs are apparently cool with it unless there are chairs and tables being thrown about in the halls of the Pentagon?

Monday, June 22, 2015

Washington, D.C.— Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today released the following statement in response to reports that the United States is sharing a military base with Iranian forces in Iraq:

“When I was a soldier fighting in Iraq, Iran supplied the most advanced, most lethal roadside bombs used against coalition forces. Many American soldiers lost their lives to Iran’s proxies and Iranian-supplied bombs. Further, Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and has been attacking the United States for decades. It’s deeply troubling that the President now finds it acceptable to share a military base with this enemy, even while we are attempting to negotiate a deal to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“This report is a stark and nearly absurd demonstration of the Obama administration’s tacit accommodation of Iran’s strategic aim of extending its influence in Iraq. It echoes the president’s tacit accommodation of Iran’s wish to maintain Bashar al-Assad in Syria and his explicit accommodation of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

For background in MILCOM in Iraq and this base, see page 33.

Iran’s Forces and U.S. Share a Base in Iraq

By Josh Rogin & Eli Lake

The U.S. military and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are getting closer and closer in Iraq, even sharing a base, while Iran uses those militias to expand its influence in Iraq and fight alongside the Bashar al-Assad regime in neighboring Syria.

Two senior administration officials confirmed to us that U.S. soldiers and Shiite militia groups are both using the Taqqadum military base in Anbar, the same Iraqi base where President Obama is sending an additional 450 U.S. military personnel to help train the local forces fighting against the Islamic State. Some of the Iran-backed Shiite militias at the base have killed American soldiers in the past.

Some inside the Obama administration fear that sharing the base puts U.S. soldiers at risk. The U.S. intelligence community has reported back to Washington that representatives of some of the more extreme militias have been spying on U.S. operations at Taqqadum, one senior administration official told us. That could be calamitous if the fragile relationship between the U.S. military and the Shiite militias comes apart and Iran-backed forces decide to again target U.S. troops.

American critics of this growing cooperation between the U.S. military and the Iranian-backed militias call it a betrayal of the U.S. personnel who fought against the militias during the 10-year U.S. occupation of Iraq.

“It’s an insult to the families of the American soldiers that were wounded and killed in battles in which the Shia militias were the enemy,” Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain told us. “Now, providing arms to them and supporting them, it’s very hard for those families to understand.”

The U.S. is not directly training Shiite units of what are known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, which include tens of thousands of Iraqis who have volunteered to fight against the Islamic Stateas well as thousands of hardened militants who ultimately answer to militia leaders loyal to Tehran. But the U.S. is flying close air support missions for those forces.

The U.S. gives weapons directly only to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Security Forces, but the lines between them and the militias are blurry. U.S. weapons often fall into the hands of militias like Iraqi Hezbollah. Sometimes the military cooperation is even more explicit. Commanders of some of the hardline militias sit in on U.S. military briefings on operations that were meant for the government-controlled Iraqi Security Forces, a senior administration official said.

This collaboration with terrorist groups that have killed Americans was seen as unavoidable as the U.S. marshaled Iraqis against the Islamic State, but could prove counterproductive to U.S. interests in the long term, this official said.

The militias comprise largely Shiite volunteers and are headed by the leader of the Iraqi Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Hewas sanctioned in 2009 by the Treasury Department for destabilizing Iraq. Al-Muhandis is a close associate of Qassem Suleimani, the Iranian Quds Force commander, who has snapped selfies with the militia leader at key battles.

Other militias that have participated in the fighting against the Islamic State include the League of the Righteous, which in 2007 carried out a brutal roadside execution of five U.S. soldiers near Karbala. The group to this day boasts of its killing of U.S. soldiers. In an interview in February, a spokesman for the militia defended the killings and said his militia had killed many more American soldiers.

Members of these groups have also been deployed by Iran to defend the Assad regime in neighboring Syria. James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, confirmed in a June 3 letter to seven Republican senators, which we obtained, that “Iran and Hezbollah have also leveraged allied Iraqi Shiia militant and terrorist groups — which receive training in Iran — to participate in pro-Assad operations.”

The Washington Institute in 2013 identified three militias — the League of the Righteous, Iraqi Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada — as sending elite fighters to Syria to fight for Assad. All three help to lead the popular mobilization committees that fight the Islamic State in Iraq.

These militias also stand accused of gross human rights abuses and battlefield atrocities in Sunni areas where they have fought. The State Department heavily criticized Iran’s support for the Iraqi militias and those militias’ behavior in its annual report on worldwide terrorism, released late last week.

“Despite its pledge to support Iraq’s stabilization, Iran increased training and funding to Iraqi Shia militia groups in response to ISIL’s advance into Iraq. Many of these groups, such as Iraqi Hezbollah, have exacerbated sectarian tensions in Iraq and have committed serious human rights abuses against primarily Sunni civilians,” the State Department reported. “Similar to Hezbollahfighters, many of these trained Shia militants have used these skills to fight for the Assad regime in Syria or against ISIL in Iraq.”

Accounts of the number of Iraqi Shiite fighters at Taqqadum vary. One senior administration official told us there are “only a few” militia representatives at the base, to coordinate with Iraqi Security Forces, while the bulk of the popular mobilization forces are deployed in the field, mostly around Ramadi, which is held by theIslamic State. A different senior administration official told us that there were hundreds of Shiite militia fighters at the base recently and that they flow in and out of the base for operations in the area.

The U.S. government has sought and received formal assurances from the government of Iraq that the Shiite militias on the base would not interfere with American military personnel. Butthere’s widespread skepticism that the politicians in Baghdad exertany real control over the hard-line militias. So far, in the 11 months since U.S. special operations forces have been in Iraq, Iranian supported militias in Iraq and U.S. personnel have not clashed while fighting a common enemy.

“There’s no real command and control from the central government,” one senior administration official said. “Even if these guys don’t attack us … Iran is ushering in a new Hezbollah era in Iraq, and we will have aided and abetted it.”

With the deadline approaching for a nuclear deal that would place up to $150 billion in the hands of Iran, the U.S. is now openly acknowledging in its annual report on international terrorism that Iran is supporting a foreign legion, comprising Afghans, Iraqis and Lebanese fighters, to defend Iranian interests throughout the Middle East.

But the U.S. response to this is inconsistent. In Iraq, America is fighting alongside Iranian-backed militias. In Syria, U.S.-supported forces are fighting against these same militias. The tragedy of this policy is that the Islamic State has been able to hold and expand its territory in Iraq and Syria, while Iran has been able to tighten its grip on Baghdad.

NATO Arms up and Putin Pledges Cooperation

Posted on June 22, 2015June 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

Defense Secretary Ash Carter will travel to Germany, Estonia, and Belgium June 21 – 26 for a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings with European defense ministers and to participate in his first NATO Ministerial as secretary of defense.
In this important month for the alliance, Carter will hear directly from ministers, defense leaders, and service members about the progress we have made since the Wales Summit to address the new security environment, including the challenges from Russia and NATO’s southern front, and discuss what we must do in the future to enhance the effectiveness of the alliance.

NATO's Response Force and U.K., Swedish, Finnish and U.S. Marines conduct an amphibious assault during exercise Baltic Operations 2015, June 10, 2015. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Tatum Vayavananda

For an interactive map of Operation Atlantic Resolve, click here.

LUXEMBOURG: The European Union on Monday extended economic sanctions against Russia until January to keep pressure on Moscow over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, drawing a rebuke and a warning of retaliation from Russian officials.

An EU statement said the decision was taken without debate by the bloc’s foreign ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg, in response to “Russia’s destabilizing role in eastern Ukraine.”

The sanctions, along with U.S. and other Western measures against Russia, have contributed to a softening of the Russian economy at a time when the price of oil that is crucial to its economic output also has fallen. The sanctions have also put a pinch on some of Russia’s key EU trading partners.

Then Putin decides to moderate and cooperate?

From IB Times: Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that Moscow is not averse to economic co-operation with the West despite the sanctions imposed on it over the Ukraine crisis. Mr Putin was addressing the Economic forum in St Petersburg and said Russia’s economy has adapted itself to face the pressures of sanctions. Significantly, Mr Putin avoided the usual anti-Western rhetoric, observers noted.

“The imposition of so-called sanctions has forced us to significantly step up efforts to replace imports with domestic products. We have made serious steps and achieved noticeable results in a number of areas”, said Mr Putin and claimed that economy has “stabilised” and its financial and banking systems are now attuned to the new conditions. He also stressed Russia’s desire to remain a key player in the world economy and desire to work with the west as well as other countries. Noting that Russia is open to the world, Mr Putin said active co-operation with new centres of global growth, implying China, it no way means that “we intend to pay less attention to our dialogue with our traditional Western partners.”

Secretary of Defense Carter, DoD and NATO step up offensive objectives.

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2015 – The challenges to NATO from Russia and on the alliance’s southern flank will be the focus of Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s trip to the continent this week.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter talks with news reporters aboard an aircraft June 21, 2015, en route to Berlin. Carter plans to meet with European defense ministers and participate in his first NATO ministerial as defense secretary during the trip to Germany, Estonia and Belgium. DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

Carter arrived in Berlin yesterday for talks with the German defense minister. From Germany, he will travel to Estonia and then end his trip at the NATO defense ministerial in Brussels.

Yesterday, the secretary spoke to reporters traveling with him.

NATO is Changing

The secretary said NATO must, and is, changing to confront the new threats. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive behavior in Georgia and Ukraine must be countered, and further aggression must be deterred, he said.

The secretary said he’ll explain America’s “strong but balanced approach” to dealing with Russia.

“It’s strong, in the sense that we are cognizant of the needs to deter and be prepared to respond to Russian aggression, if it occurs, around the world, but also especially in NATO and with NATO,” Carter told reporters.

U.S. soldiers in Stryker armored vehicles arrive at Smardan Training Area, Romania, March 24, 2015. The soldiers, assigned to 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, participated in Saber Junction 15, which included 5,000 troops from 17 nations that are NATO allies and partners. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Opal Vaughn

NATO is countering Russian behavior with the Spearhead Force designed to move quickly and powerfully to the scene of an incident, the secretary said.

“Another part of that is helping the states, both NATO members and non-NATO members, at the periphery of Russia … to harden themselves to malign influence or destabilization of the kind that Russia has fomented in eastern Ukraine,” he said.

Adapting to Challenges

The balance comes from needing to work with Russia on other issues, Carter said. Russia is a part of the P5-plus-1 talks with Iran. Russia also has a role in countering terrorism.

In short, Russia’s interests do in some areas align with those of the rest of the world, the secretary said.

“The United States, at least, continues to hold out the prospect that Russia — maybe not under Vladimir Putin, but maybe some time in the future — will return to a forward-moving course rather than a backward-looking course,” Carter said.

Southern Europe is threatened by extremism, the secretary said, noting that NATO defense ministers will discuss this threat. The dangers of extremism in the Middle East, he said, is manifested by increasing streams of refugees seeking to escape ungoverned or poorly governed areas of North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

“In both of those areas NATO needs to, and is, adapting,” Carter said. “These are challenges that are different in kind from the old Fulda Gap, Cold War challenge. They are different in their own ways from Afghanistan and the kinds of things that we’ve been doing there. So it’s new, but NATO … is adapting for both of them.”

Demanded bin Ladin’s Death Certificate, Denied

Posted on June 20, 2015June 20, 2015 by Denise Simon

As written about in detail here, a hacking group calling itself the Yemen Cyber Army performed a cyber intrusion into the Saudi ministry of Foreign Affairs. A particular set of communications points to the request for Usama bin Ladin’s death certificate, and the United States denied the request. Other Freedom of Information requests were also made and the response was, there is no record.

Osama bin Laden’s son asked the U.S. government for his father’s death certificate. The U.S. said no.

by: Adam Taylor, Washington Post

According to a recently leaked document, the son of al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, Abdullah bin Laden, sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia to ask for his father’s death certificate.

In response, the embassy wrote to Abdullah to inform him that there was no death certificate issued for the older bin Laden.

The letter went on to suggest other ways that the al-Qaeda leader’s death could be officially confirmed.

The remarkable exchange has come to light thanks to the latest release from WikiLeaks, the controversial secret sharing organization helmed by Julian Assange. On Friday, the organization released what it said was the first part of more than a half-million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, which it had dubbed “The Saudi Cables.”

The U.S. Embassy’s response to Abdallah was included within the release. It is dated Sept. 9, 2011, approximately four months after bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his hideout in Pakistan. U.S. officials have said that bin Laden was later buried at sea. Requests to publish photographs of bin Laden’s body or his burial have been denied and any photographs taken are suspected to have been destroyed.

In the letter to Abdullah bin Laden, Glen Keiser, a consul general at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, explains that the lack of a death certificate for bin Laden is “consistent with regular practice for individuals killed in the course of military operations.”

Keiser goes on to suggest that the criminal case against Osama bin Laden had effectively been dropped due to his death since June 2011, and describes a process for requesting the order of “nolle prosequi” (which literally means “unwilling to pursue”) from the court, which could act as proof of death.

It’s unclear why Abdullah bin Laden had requested the death certificate.

In 2012, the Department of Defense responded to an Associated Press Freedom of Information Act request and said that it was unable to find a death certificate for bin Laden.

Newly declassified documents from the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 have revealed the late al-Qaeda leader’s remarkable English-language library, including books by Noam Chomsky, Bob Woodward and even 9/11 conspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin.

Yet the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which released the files on Wednesday, has not released all the material found in the compound. In fact, there’s a rather notorious stash that the U.S. government apparently doesn’t want you to see: a cache of pornography.