Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

Advances and Secret Information on Hacking of Classified Systems

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Hacking never has the sizzle when it comes to terror or scandals, yet it is the cheapest and most effective means of destruction.

So, below are some items you cannot overlook.

A few weeks ago, the unclassified email and information system at the Pentagon, mostly used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff was taken offline due to suspicious malware activity. That system is back online as of this week after all clues pointed to the hack by Russians which led to up to 4000 Pentagon employees losing access to email.

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Then it has been determined the Chinese have accessed top government officials private emails since 2010.

Chinese hackers have been accessing the private mails of some top United States officials since April of 2010, which coincides with Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state and her decision to use a private email server, Morning Joe’s Willie Geist reported Tuesday.

“The email grab, first code-named Dancing Panda, targeted top national security and trade officials,” Geist said. “It continued as late as 2014. The timing does overlap with Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state and her use of a private email server.”

“Many” top officials have been hacked, according to a high-level intelligence source and a top-secret document obtained by NBC News.

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Now comes a global network of hacking and their successful and criminal activities.

Exposing a new front in cybercrime, U.S. authorities broke up an alleged insider trading ring that relied on computer hackers to pilfer corporate press announcements and then profited by trading on the sensitive information before it became public.

In morning raids in Georgia and Pennsylvania, federal agents arrested five men in the plot, while four others indicted on hacking and securities fraud charges remain at large.

The hackers, who are thought to be in Ukraine and possibly Russia, allegedly infiltrated the computer servers of PRNewswire Association LLC, Marketwired and Business Wire, a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., over a five-year period.

They siphoned more than 100,000 press releases including corporate data on earnings that could be used to anticipate stock market moves and make profitable trades. The hackers passed the information to associates in the U.S., who allegedly used it to buy and sell shares of dozens of companies, including Panera Bread Co., Boeing Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Caterpillar Inc. and Oracle Corp., through retail brokerage accounts. A must read for the rest of the details is here.

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Most chilling of all is the forward leaning and creative uses of drones.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Forget Facebook drones that broadcast Wifi. The future is drones that hack from above. A company called Aerial Assault has turned a quadcopter into a flying hacker that scans the world below for insecure devices and vulnerable Wifi ports. Its makers say they built the tool for penetration testing — to help “good guys” diagnose their own weaknesses — but they concede that with a bit of modification, it could be used to exploit those vulnerabilities and install malware from the air. This is why it’s paramount to get your I.T. network looked at by a penetration testing company, you may think this is a scary thing for your company to undergo however, it will actually prevent people (hackers) from stealing your companies information as all of the weak spots would of been identified and then rectified.

The unnamed drone, which may be the first unmanned aerial penetration tool for sale to the public, was on display at the DEF CON hacker conference here last week. It uses a small Raspberry Pi computer running the Kali Linux penetration tester software with the broadcast range extended by alpha radio antennas. It will retail for $2,500 when the Web site goes up in a few days, its makers say.

“We’ve set it up so it does some basic [penetration] testing stuff and coordinates all that data with GPS coordinates from the flight controller. From that, you can extend it with every type of capability that you want Kali Linux to do,” said David Jordan, a representative from Aerial Assault who was selling it on the floor at the DEF CON conference in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday.

While the drone isn’t specifically designed to distribute malware, Jordan acknowledged it could be modified to do so. “It is up to the user to decide what they do with it. If the user, they have Raspberry Pi with Kali on it, they can reprogram custom scripts. That’s good for doing more extensive [penetration] testing. But, you know, scripts can be whatever they are,” he said. “Our intended use is for pentesters to be able to diagnose vulnerabilities and help people understand what their Wifi accessibility is, even up in the air.”

 

Plea Deal for 7th Indictment in Brian Terry’s Murder

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In August of 2014, per the Justice Department, Rosario Rafael Burboa-Alvarez became the 7th man charged in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Burboa was part of the rip-crew and recruited others for continued operations.

The rip crew did not have weapons on them when their backpacks were searched, but the weapons they used were instead in a hidden cached location and retrieved by the rip crew only hours later.

He and others were monitored by several U.S. agencies that included ATF, FBI and DEA. Yet he is a happier man, due to a plea deal. He pled guilty to the death of Brian Terry.

N4T Investigators: Plea deal given to man indicted in murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry

One of the men charged in the murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry pleaded guilty to one count of murder, Monday morning. Once a potential candidate for the death penalty after the murder of the agent, the drawn up plea deal now states that the U.S. and the defendant will ask for 360 months imprisonment, with credit for time served since his arrest in October 2012.

The Justice Department indicted Rosario Rafael Burboa Alvarez last summer in connection with the killing. Alvarez was identified as the recruiter for the rip-off crew that ran into Terry’s elite BORTAC unit in the desert in December 2010. Terry was killed in the ensuing gunfight with the rip-off crew and later two AK-47 variants found at the crime scene were identified as part of the notorious Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gunwalking operation, Operation Fast and Furious. The scandalous operation was supposed to link guns bought at a Phoenix-area gunstore to cartel gunmen trafficking the weapons to Mexico. Instead, ATF lost more than 2,000 of those weapons. Resulting congressional investigations found that the men linked to the gun purchases were being monitored by different U.S. federal agencies like DEA, the FBI and ATF, but agents weren’t sharing the information with the other agencies.

Burboa was often identified in federal search warrants and charging papers as the recruiter of the group. Burboa, the U.S. said, recruited rip-off crews to rob drug smugglers of their marijuana loads, then paid them after they performed the robbery and returned to Sinaloa. In early December, the rip-off crew entered the U.S. from Mexico, retrieved a stash of weapons and food and went to work, hunting smugglers. Instead, they encountered Terry’s tactical unit that had taken position at the top of a wash.

As part of the plea agreement, the United States agreed not to execute Burboa and to dismiss all other charges against him, including charges of interfering with federal officers and killing Terry with “malice aforethought” the second charge in the superseding indictment.

The plea deal also notes that Burboa had already been ordered expelled from the U.S., though it is not clear if the expulsion order derives from Terry’s murder or from a previous crime.

Burboa’s 30 year sentence is in line with the sentence handed to Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, the man wounded during the firefight. Osorio-Arellanes faced life but was ultimately sentenced to 30 years in 2012. Jaime Avila, Jr., the Operation Fast and Furious gunbuyer who purchased the two AK-47s found at the murder scene was also sentenced in 2012. He received a 57 month sentence.

Dark Money Still Flows, Hillary’s Campaign and More Connections

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Group backing Clinton gets $1M from untraceable donors

By JULIE BYKOWICZ
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton told a cheering crowd at her largest rally so far that “the endless flow of secret, unaccountable money” must be stopped. Two weeks later, the main super PAC backing her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination accepted a $1 million contribution that cannot be traced.

The seven-figure donation, made June 29 to the pro-Clinton Priorities USA Action, came from another super political action committee, called Fair Share Action. Its two lone contributors are Fair Share Inc. and EnvironmentAmerica Inc., according to records filed with Federal Election Commission.

Those two groups are nonprofits that are not legally required to reveal information about their donors. Such contributions are sometimes called “dark money” by advocates for stricter campaign finance rules.

“This appears to be an out-and-out laundering operation designed to keep secret from the public the original source of the funds given to the super PAC, which is required to disclose its contributors,” said Fred Wertheimer, director of one such group, the Washington-based Democracy 21.

Wertheimer urged Priorities to return the money and said that Clinton should demand that the super PAC “publicly disclose all of the original sources of money” of any contribution it receives. More details here.

(Fair Share Action founded and funded by Tim Gill, owner of an internet technology company and an LGBT activist. Further behind the cause is Tom Steyer with Environment America, the NEA and Mark Udall. )

Then we still have Planned Parenthood and the Unions when both are fully supported by the White House and received federal dollars. Even with the 5 videos released by Planned Parenthood, not only Hillary Clinton but many others in Congress continue to stand with Planned Parenthood.

FreeBeacon:   Unions, Planned Parenthood Exchange Donations, Political Cash

About $1.5 million in the past five years

Unions received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Planned Parenthood over the past five years, while shelling out more than $1 million to the nation’s largest abortionist.

Since 2011 politically powerful labor unions and Planned Parenthood have exchanged lucrative gifts for “charitable” endeavors and political advocacy.

Planned Parenthood, which is in the midst of a scandal after a pro-life group released videos detailing potentially illegal organ harvesting techniques and sales, has contributed more than $350,000 to three labor unions. The largest donation went to Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the nation’s top political spenders, with nearly all of its money going to Democrats. SEIU received more than $285,000 from the group in 2011. The contribution was described as “charitable” in nature, according to federal labor filings.

Two $8,500 donations by Planned Parenthood to the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, were also described as charitable.

Unions also engaged in charitable giving to the billion-dollar organization, pouring $520,000 into Planned Parenthood coffers in the name of donating to a non-profit organization. The New York City chapter of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) was responsible for nearly half of those donations with two $125,000 donations in 2012 alone.

Most of the transactions between Planned Parenthood and unions involved political activities. Labor giant AFL-CIO cashed a check for $50,000 from the organization for an “issue advocacy group,” and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees contributed $400,000 of the $600,000 in total donations that Planned Parenthood’s political operations have received since 2011.

These transactions came from some of the most influential and largest unions in the country, including AFL-CIO, United Autoworkers Union, National Education Association, SEIU, AFT, United Food and Commercial Union, and several local affiliates.

Only one of the labor unions responded to requests for comment about the nature of their relationships with the Planned Parenthood and whether they would continue in the wake of scandal.

The New York City teachers union made a $125,000 contribution to Planned Parenthood, which does not provide mammogram services, lost cancer-screening funding from the anti-breast cancer Susan G. Komen Foundation. Komen’s funding was later restored.

A spokesman for AFT in New York City indicated that the union still supports Planned Parenthood, pointing to a resolution urging “all our members to support Planned Parenthood as members and contributors.”

Planned Parenthood did not return request for comment.

Labor watchdogs said they were not surprised at the close ties between two of the Democratic Party’s biggest constituencies. Patrick Semmens, a vice president at the National Right to Work Foundation, said there is a big gap between the beliefs of union leadership and union members. There is little that workers can do to avoid running afoul their own principles as long as states do not give them the option to break ties with membership as a condition of employment.

 

“Whether it is sending dues money to Planned Parenthood, the Clinton Foundation, ACORN or any other organization that has nothing to do with representing rank-and-file workers, employees will have no way to hold union bosses accountable for how their money is spent as long as union officials are empowered by law to make payment to the union mandatory,” Semmens said.

Some members are now suing to overturn coercive unionism in order to avoid violating their religious beliefs. California teacher Rebecca Friedrichs is suing to break ties with the California Education Association, claiming that mandatory agency fee payments to support the union’s operation violates her rights to free association and to live by her conscience.

The Center for Individual Rights (CIR), a non-profit group, helped file Friedrichs’ case in federal court.

“Partisan donations aren’t remotely related to the union’s collective bargaining mission.  Forcing teachers to pay dues to support donations to Planned Parenthood is compelled speech of the most egregious kind.  That’s why the First Amendment protects the right of teachers to decide for themselves whether to pay fees to teachers unions,” CIR President Terry Pell said.

The Supreme Court will hear the case during its next session.

What you Need to Know About the Visa Waiver Program

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There are 38 countries that participate in the State Department Visa Waiver Program. There are very few conditions for people traveling to the United States from those countries to enter our country. There are countless problems with this program most of which is those that over-stay and never go home.

Europe has an unspeakable problem with Islamic State sympathizers and those from the UK are allowed to travel to the U.S. without any real conditions.

To make America safer immediately a first step is to suspend this program immediately and for at least two years.

Have no fear…yeah sure. The program is getting tighter security measures.

DHS Announces Security Enhancements to Visa Waiver Program

By: Amanda Vicinanzo, Senior Editor

Just days ago, Adil Batarfi, one of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) senior commanders, issued a threat against America and the West if they continue to blasphemy Islam. Amid these continued calls for terrorist attacks on the homeland, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced new security enhancements to the US Visa Waiver program (VWP).

The VWP is administered by DHS and enables eligible citizens or nationals of designated countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for 90 days or less without first obtaining a visa. The VWP constitutes one of a few exceptions under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) in which foreign nationals are admitted into the United States without a valid visa.

To enhance the security of the program, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson announced a number of additional or revised security criteria for all participants—both current and new members— in the VWP. The new criteria include the following:

  • Required use of e-passports for all Visa Waiver Program travelers coming to the United States;
  • Required use of the INTERPOL Lost and Stolen Passport Database to screen travelers crossing a Visa Waiver country’s borders; and
  • Permission for the expanded use of U.S. federal air marshals on international flights from Visa Waiver countries to the United States.

“As I have said a number of times now, the current global threat environment requires that we know more about those who travel to the United States,” Johnson said. “This includes those from countries for which we do not require a visa.”

Johnson said the new enhancements build on a number of changes implemented last September. DHS required travelers from the 38 VWP countries where a visa is not required for US entry to provide additional passport data, contact information and other potential names or aliases in their travel application submitted via the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) before they could travel to the US.

DHS took steps to improve the program in the wake of the adoption of United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 2178 last September, which urged member nations to do more to address the growing threat of foreign terrorist fighters.

“The security enhancements we announce today are part of this department’s continuing assessments of our homeland security in the face of evolving threats and challenges, and our determination to stay one step ahead of those threats and challenges,” Johnson said. “And, it is our considered judgment that the security enhancements we announce today will not hinder lawful trade and travel with our partners in the Visa Waiver Program. These measures will enhance security for all concerned.”

Homeland Security Today reported earlier this year that lawmakers have become concerned that the program could be used as a gateway for terrorists to enter the United States. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, called the VWP the “Achilles’ heel of America,” saying citizens from visa waiver countries could travel to Syria to fight for jihadist groups and return home to conducts attacks.

A UN report from earlier this year revealed that the number of foreign fighters leaving their home nations to join extremist groups in Iraq, Syria and other nations has hit record levels, with estimates of over 25,000 foreign fighters coming from nearly 100 countries.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, has raised similar concerns. During an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” McCaul said, “We have a visa waiver-free system where they can fly in the United States without even having a visa. We need to look at all sorts of things like that.”

However, defenders of the program believe VWP is critical to national security. At a speech at The Heritage Foundation, former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff made the case for continuing the VWP.

“Now is not the time to handicap or dismantle our intelligence collection programs … that have literally been at the cornerstone of protecting the United States since 2001.” VWP is “a plus-plus for our national security and our economic security,” Chertoff said.

AQAP New Threat Against America

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An al-Qaeda operative freed in a prison assault in Yemen has exploited chaos caused by fighting in the country to take a touristic tour of government buildings and posted photos of the visit online.

Khalid Batarfi, a high-ranking member of the jihadi group’s powerful Yemeni branch al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is seen posing with a smile inside the local provincial governor palace in the southern port of al-Mukalla, in pictures circulated on social media.

Al Qaeda branch calls for new attacks against United States

(CNN)Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, which officials have called the terror group’s most dangerous affiliate, has issued two threatening new communiques praising recent lone-wolf style attacks against the West and calling for more of them.

“We urge you to strike America in its own home and beyond,” says a letter attributed to Ibrahim al-Asiri, the master bomb-maker with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The letter, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence Group, states, “America is first.”

CNN is unable to independently verify that Asiri himself wrote it, but the letter has drawn the attention of terror trackers such as MEMRI, Flashpoint and SITE.

A U.S. counterterrorism official described the letter as “consistent with rhetoric the new leader stated upon taking over al Qaeda’s most active affiliate that is known to threaten Western interests.”

A big bounty

Asiri has a $5 million bounty on his head, and analysts say if he did write the letter, he may have been putting himself at risk.

“The concern for Asiri would be that somehow the message would be traceable back to him — whether by courier, or some digital stamp inside of the message,” said Katherine Zimmerman of the American Enterprise Institute. “We have seen U.S. drone strikes kill a series of top al Qaeda leaders in Yemen over the past few months.”

But if the letter is genuine, it would indicate that Asiri, who rarely makes public statements, is still alive.

Intelligence officials say Asiri was a key player in the 2009 Christmas Day bomb attempt in which a passenger from Africa almost managed to detonate a bomb aboard a Detroit-bound plane that he’d hidden in his underwear. Asiri was also behind the placing of bombs in printer cartridges aboard planes headed for the United States that were intercepted before they reached their targets.

He even designed a bomb to be carried on the body of his own brother, Abdullah al-Asiri, in attempt to kill Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism chief in 2009. The bomb killed his brother, but the Saudi minister survived.

A dangerous foe

“He’s without question the most dangerous terrorist operative that the United States faces today,” said CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank. “Intelligence suggests that he is developing a new generation of explosive devices including a new generation of underwear and shoe bomb devices.”

Zimmerman says Asiri is believed to have taught his skills to a cadre of bomb-makers.

“He has trained a series of individuals who are able to do what he does, which is bring imagination and innovation to an explosive device that could make it through U.S. or Western security,” she said.

The video embedding code has been disabled but can be played here.

Another senior AQAP leader, Khalid Batarfi, is featured in a second threatening video.

He praises the July attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in which a gunman killed five American servicemen at a military installation, as “a blessed Jihadi operation.” And he also praises two gunmen who tried to mount an attack in Garland, Texas, in May for their “sacrifice and heroism.”

“Blood for blood,” Batarfi says in a speech posted online.

He then encourages further lone-wolf attacks against America and the West. “To the warriors of Lone Jihad: may Allah bless and guide your efforts,” he says.

A U.S. intelligence official said this video is believed to be genuine.

“Batarfi has become a main AQAP media figure since his escape from a Yemeni prison this spring,” the official said.

While a number of AQAP leaders have been targeted by strikes this year, the fighting in Yemen between warring factions has deprived the United States of a partner on the ground to work with on tracking and targeting militants.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, recently told a conference in Aspen, Colorado, that “in terms of proximate threat, I would view … AQAP — even though they’re kind of consumed right now with what’s going on in Yemen with the Houthis — as probably our most concerning al Qaeda element in terms of threat to the homeland.”