Category Archives: Insurgency

Obama’s Proposed Cyber Legislation

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Be careful where this proposed legislation may lead. In the recent hack attacks that have been broadcasted in the media including Staples, Target and Sony, most recently CENTCOM had two social media sites hit. The hackers of the CENTCOM sites were not Islamic State but rather, sympathizers of the terror group located in Maryland as determined by the IP addresses.

Additional items are likely to be part of the proposed legislation that included in the text below giving broader and more sweeping access to the FBI and the NSA.

In order to add protectional layers of security to key internet providers, it is likely users may be forced to give up certain protections most especially encryption.  The White House posted the proposed legislation.

SECURING CYBERSPACE – President Obama Announces New Cybersecurity Legislative Proposal and Other Cybersecurity Efforts

“In this interconnected, digital world, there are going to be opportunities for hackers to engage in cyber assaults both in the private sector and the public sector.  Now, our first order of business is making sure that we do everything to harden sites and prevent those kinds of attacks from taking place…But even as we get better, the hackers are going to get better, too.  Some of them are going to be state actors; some of them are going to be non-state actors.  All of them are going to be sophisticated and many of them can do some damage.

This is part of the reason why it’s going to be so important for Congress to work with us and get an actual bill passed that allows for the kind of information-sharing we need.  Because if we don’t put in place the kind of architecture that can prevent these attacks from taking place, this is not just going to be affecting movies, this is going to be affecting our entire economy in ways that are extraordinarily significant.”

 – President Obama, December 19, 2014.

 

Since the start of his Administration, when he issued the Cyberspace Policy Review — the first top-to-bottom, Administration-wide review of cybersecurity — President Obama has led efforts to better prepare our government, our economy, and our nation as a whole for the growing cyber threats we face.

That’s why in 2011 he issued his Cybersecurity Legislative Proposal, calling on Congress to take urgent action to give the private sector and government the tools they need to combat cyber threats at home and abroad.  It’s why he issued the International Strategy for Cyberspace to make clear to nations abroad the foreign policy priority cybersecurity issues have become.  And when Congress failed to pass comprehensive cybersecurity legislation, the Administration pressed forward, issuing an Executive Order to protect critical infrastructure by establishing baseline cybersecurity standards that we developed collaboratively with industry.

Today, at a time when public and private networks are facing an unprecedented threat from rogue hackers as well as organized crime and even state actors, the President is unveiling the next steps in his plan to defend the nation’s systems.  These include a new legislative proposal, building on important work in Congress, to solve the challenges of information sharing that can cripple response to a cyberattack.  They also include revisions to those provisions of our 2011 legislative proposal on which Congress has yet to take action, and along with them, the President is extending an invitation to work in a bipartisan, bicameral manner to advance this urgent priority for the American people.

Specifically, today’s announcements include:

Cybersecurity Legislative Proposal

Enabling Cybersecurity Information Sharing: The Administration’s updated proposal promotes better cybersecurity information sharing between the private sector and government, and it enhances collaboration and information sharing amongst the private sector.  Specifically, the proposal encourages the private sector to share appropriate cyber threat information with the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), which will then share it in as close to real-time as practicable with relevant federal agencies and with private sector-developed and operated Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations (ISAOs) by providing targeted liability protection for companies that share information with these entities.

The legislation also encourages the formation of these private-sector led Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations.  The Administration’s proposal would also safeguard Americans’ personal privacy by requiring private entities to comply with certain privacy restrictions such as removing unnecessary personal information and taking measures to protect any personal information that must be shared in order to qualify for liability protection.  The proposal further requires the Department of Homeland Security and the Attorney General, in consultation with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and others, to develop receipt, retention, use, and disclosure guidelines for the federal government.  Finally, the Administration intends this proposal to complement and not to limit existing effective relationships between government and the private sector.  These existing relationships between law enforcement and other federal agencies are critical to the cybersecurity mission.

Modernizing Law Enforcement Authorities to Combat Cyber Crime: Law enforcement must have appropriate tools to investigate, disrupt and prosecute cyber crime.  The Administration’s proposal contains provisions that would allow for the prosecution of the sale of botnets, would criminalize the overseas sale of stolen U.S. financial information like credit card and bank account numbers, would expand federal law enforcement authority to deter the sale of spyware used to stalk or commit ID theft, and would give courts the authority to shut down botnets engaged in distributed denial of service attacks and other criminal activity.  It also reaffirms important components of 2011 proposals to update the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a key piece of law used to prosecute organized crime, so that it applies to cybercrimes, clarifies the penalties for computer crimes, and makes sure these penalties are in line with other similar non-cyber crimes.  Finally, the proposal modernizes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by ensuring that insignificant conduct does not fall within the scope of the statute, while making clear that it can be used to prosecute insiders who abuse their ability to access information to use it for their own purposes.

National Data Breach Reporting: As announced yesterday, the Administration has also updated its proposal on security breach reporting.  State laws have helped consumers protect themselves against identity theft while also encouraging business to improve cybersecurity, helping to stem the tide of identity theft. These laws require businesses that have suffered an intrusion to notify consumers if consumers’ personal information has been compromised.  The Administration’s updated proposal helps business and consumers by simplifying and standardizing the existing patchwork of 46 state laws (plus the District of Columbia and several territories) that contain these requirements into one federal statute, and puts in place a single clear and timely notice requirement to ensure that companies notify their employees and customers about security breaches.

White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection

On February 13, 2015, the White House will host a Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford University, to help shape public and private sector efforts to protect American consumers and companies from growing threats to consumers and commercial networks.

The Summit will bring together major stakeholders on cybersecurity and consumer financial protection issues – including senior leaders from the White House and across the federal government; CEOs from a wide range of industries including the financial services industry, technology and communications companies; computer security companies and the retail industry; as well as law enforcement officials, consumer advocates, technical experts, and students.  Topics at the Summit will include increasing public-private partnerships and cybersecurity information sharing, creating and promoting improved cybersecurity practices and technologies, and improving adoption and use of more secure payment technologies.

The Summit is also the next step in the President’s BuySecure Initiative, which was launched in November 2014, and will help advance national efforts the government has led over the last two years with executive orders on consumer financial protection and critical infrastructure cybersecurity. Through keynote speeches, panel discussions, and small group workshops, participants will build on efforts in the public and private sectors to further improve cybersecurity practices at a wide range of companies.

Grants to Historically Black Colleges for Cybersecurity Education

As the President stated in Executive Order 13532, “Promoting Excellence, Innovation, and Sustainability at Historically Black Colleges and Universities” in February 2010, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have made historic and ongoing contributions to the general welfare and prosperity of our country.  Established by visionary leaders, America’s HBCUs, for over 150 years, have produced many of the Nation’s leaders in business, government, academia, and the military, and have provided generations of American men and women with hope and educational opportunity. Recognizing that HBCUs serve as engines of opportunity, innovation, and economic growth, Vice President Biden will travel to Norfolk, VA on Thursday to announce that the Department of Energy will provide $25 million in grants over the next five years to support a cybersecurity education consortium consisting of 13 HBCUs and two national labs.

This program, part of the President’s jobs-driven training initiative, will help to fill the growing demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals in the U.S. job market at the same time that it helps to grow the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula for HBCUs. The participating schools include two-year colleges, four-year colleges, and research institutions in seven states, plus the Virgin Islands.

JC Chairman Dempsey Not Happy with WH

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Can you list those in those in the Obama administration graveyard? The White House has rarely met with any cabinet secretaries to date during the Obama administration. Then top people have moved on to private business. Like who? Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Hagel, John Podesta, Kathleen Sebilius, Janet Napolitano, Jay Carney, Robert Gibbs, James Jones, Anita Dunn, Van Jones, Peter Orzag, Larry Summers,  General McChrystal, General Carter Ham, General David Petraeus, Rahm Emanual, Christina Roemler and there are more.

Now the question is why….perhaps at least one very important reason is micro-managing. In case you need proof, read on.

Joint Chiefs chairman distances himself from Obama promise on Afghanistan

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff doesn’t entirely share his boss’s unbridled optimism about the future of Afghanistan.

President Obama last month vowed that Afghanistan never again will be a breeding ground for terrorist attacks against the U.S., reassuring troops that they accomplished their mission as official combat operations came to an end.               

 

But Gen. Martin E. Dempsey on Sunday distanced himself from that statement.

“You’d have to ask the president how he could say that,” Gen. Dempsey said on “Fox News Sunday” when asked how the president could be sure Afghanistan won’t again become a safe haven for terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.

Mr. Obama made the remarks during a Christmas Day address to troops stationed in Hawaii. The president long has cast the Afghanistan War as a worthy fight and one critical to U.S. foreign policy moving forward, as opposed to the Iraq War, which he has characterized as a mistake.

“Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country. We are safer. It’s not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again,” Mr. Obama told the troops.

Gen. Dempsey made clear that he believes the new government in Afghanistan will be a cooperative partner with the U.S. He also said he believes Afghan security forces have shown encouraging signs that they are willing to defend their country.     

 

But he stopped short of endorsing Mr. Obama’s blanket vow.

“I personally think there will be pockets inside of Afghanistan that change hands from time to time because that’s the history of the country,” he said. “But I think that we’re in a very good place in Afghanistan in terms of giving them a chance to do exactly what the president said. But we’re going to have to keep an eye on it.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Gen. Dempsey also addressed accusations — some from numerous former Pentagon officials — that the White House micromanages the Defense Department.

The charges have come from, among others, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who unexpectedly resigned in November.

Gen. Dempsey said he believes the Pentagon’s relationship with the White House should be measured by whether he has access to the president and whether top administration officials listen to what he has to say.

“The metric we should be focused on is access and whether my advice influences decisions,” Gen. Dempsey said. “Whether someone wants to characterize the desire, the almost insatiable appetite for information about complex issues as micromanaging, they can have at it. But for me, the metric is access and advice.”

Still, he acknowledged the criticism in a tongue-in-cheek way when first asked the question.

“If you’re asking me if I’m being micromanaged, I don’t know. I’d better go check with the White House before I answer that question,” he said.  *** But what is the issue with Afghanistan you ask?

KABUL—Adherents of Islamic State this weekend declared their intention to step up operations in Afghan territory where the Taliban have long held sway, raising the prospect of battling jihadist groups and rising terrorism in the region.

In a 16-minute video released over the weekend and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Afghan and Pakistani militants pledged their allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and unveiled the movement’s leadership structure in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“It’s very significant,” said a Western official who has seen the video. “I think they want to say: ‘This is serious—we are here.’ ”

The activity of new extremist groups could complicate efforts by the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to start peace talks with the Taliban insurgency in a bid to end the violence. The groups’ arrival also comes as U.S.-led troops formally ended combat operations in December.

In the video, the Pakistani and Afghan militants publicly reveal the name of their regional leader for the first time: Hafez Sayed Khan Orakzai. Footage shows Mr. Orakzai standing in front of a black-and-white Islamic State banner, flanked by men in black wearing balaclavas and carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles.

The video begins with a procession of men on foot and horseback waving Islamic State flags and ends gruesomely, with the beheading of a man the group says is a Pakistani soldier.

Mr. Orakzai was one of the six commanders of the Pakistani Taliban—formally known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan—who switched allegiance to Islamic State in October.  Shahidullah Shahid, the Pakistani Taliban’s former spokesman, also appears in the video, delivering introductory remarks to a crowd of militants. Mr. Shahid introduces local commanders who will be responsible for territory located on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

“We are gathered here with commanders from 10 units,” Mr. Shahid says. “They all want to pledge their allegiance to the caliph of all believers, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

In the video, both Messrs. Shahid and Orakzai speak Arabic, the language of the Quran, instead of their native Pashto.

While the military reach of Islamic State has thus far been limited to parts of Iraq and Syria, the defection of Afghan and Pakistani militants to the group raises fears that a new front line could emerge in South and Central Asia.

The rise of Islamic State could pose a challenge to the Afghan Taliban, a movement loyal to its elusive spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who hasn’t been seen in public since December 2001.

The Taliban movement is fragmented and, in the absence of visible leadership, some of its members have begun to look to Syria and Iraq for guidance and inspiration. A United Nations report released in December noted “a distinct increase in the activities and the visibility” of extremist groups such as Islamic State in 2014, and said that Afghan militants were beginning to defect to the group.

Members of the Afghan Taliban who joined Islamic State include Mawlawi Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost and Mawlavi Abdul Qahir, according to Mr. Shahid and the U.N. Mr. Muslim Dost, who was once imprisoned in the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the most prominent former member of the Afghan Taliban known to have joined the movement. Mr. Qahir, a former Taliban commander, was named a unit commander in the video.

Tensions between the Taliban and groups affiliated with Islamic State in Afghanistan have already turned violent. In the southwestern province of Helmand, local officials and residents say the Taliban are battling militants dressed in Islamic State’s signature black uniforms. The new group of fighters, they say, is led by a former Taliban commander, Mullah Raouf Khadim.

Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar, the deputy governor of Helmand, said the fighting started several days ago in the district of Kajaki, where the government has no control. About 30 fighters, including some women, have moved from Kajaki to the neighboring district of Sangin, according to Abdul Raziq Sarwani, a local police commander in Sangin.

The fighting in Helmand suggests that the Islamic State label could increasingly become attractive to local Taliban commanders disillusioned with their leadership. Two journalists based in Helmand who have spoken to locals in Kajaki said Mr. Khadim set up the new armed group after he was fired by the Taliban leadership.

“He established his own armed group in Kajaki and asked Taliban fighters to join him. He says Mullah Omar isn’t alive anymore, and that if he is alive he should join his own group,” one of the reporters said.

Afghan officials have previously raised the alarm on attempts by Islamic State to seek a foothold in Afghanistan, pointing to propaganda material that had been distributed in parts of Afghanistan.

While new information is adding weight to claims that Islamic State is beginning to have an active presence in the region, an Afghan security official played down the extent of its presence.

“We have some reports that show their interest in Afghanistan, but they have no base here,” the official said.

In this deeply conservative country, extremist ideology still thrives. On Friday, hundreds of men took to the streets in a district in the southern province of Uruzgan in support of the men who carried out the deadly attack on the office of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, local officials said.

The demonstrators also condemned Mr. Ghani for extending his condolences to the people of France, officials added.

 

 

 

 

CENTCOM Victim of CyberCaliphate

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An unknown network of hackers that are sympathizers of Islamic State hacked CENTCOM’s twitter account and the associated YouTube channel.  So far the response is ‘it does not appear to be anything problematic’. Ah what…problematic? The hackers had some success that for sure is problematic and what is more, data breaches of any sort does not provide anyone in America with internet security confidence.

There is a ‘cybercaliphate’ that no one is admitting.

A screenshot shows the U.S. Central Command Twitter account after it was apparently hacked by people claiming to be aligned with Islamic State militants. The account was shortly thereafter suspended.  

A screenshot shows the U.S. Central Command Twitter account after it was apparently hacked by people claiming to be aligned with Islamic State militants. The account was shortly thereafter suspended. Reuters
By

Julian E. Barnes 

U.S. Probing Apparent Hack of Military Twitter Account by Islamic State Supporters

Account Suspended After Tweets Showed Top Commanders’ Information, Military Scenarios

WASHINGTON—Hackers claiming to be aligned with Islamic State militants took control of the U.S. Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts Monday, posting phone numbers of top military officers and what they said was classified documents.

In the posting, the militants claimed they were working for the Islamic State and a “Cyber Caliphate.”

A Pentagon official said that U.S. Central Command was aware of the hack but had no immediate information about how it occurred.

Officials for a time Monday appeared to be trying to retake control of the Twitter account. Shortly after the first tweets from the hackers appeared, the “Cyber Caliphate” logo and slogan disappeared, replaced by a blue square.

Then shortly after 1 p.m., the Twitter account was labeled as suspended. Moments later, the Central Command’s YouTube account apparently was suspended.

“We can confirm that the U.S. Central Command Twitter and YouTube accounts were compromised earlier today,” said a defense official. “We are taking appropriate measures to address the matter. I have no further information to provide at this time.”

The White House said it was looking into the hack, but had little information and played down the significance of the intrusion.

“There is a significant difference between…a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary.

The tweets posted by the hackers included phone number of top military commanders and what the group said were military scenarios for a conflict with North Korea and China.

A senior Pentagon official said the information posted by the hackers on the Twitter account didn’t appear to be highly classified documents.

“It does not appear to be anything problematic,” the official said.

–Felicia Schwartz and Carol E. Lee contributed to this article.

Write to Julian E. Barnes at [email protected]

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WASHINGTON—Hackers claiming to be aligned with Islamic State militants took control of the U.S. Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts Monday, posting phone numbers of top military officers and what they said was classified documents.

In the posting, the militants claimed they were working for the Islamic State and a “Cyber Caliphate.”

A Pentagon official said that U.S. Central Command was aware of the hack but had no immediate information about how it occurred.

Officials for a time Monday appeared to be trying to retake control of the Twitter account. Shortly after the first tweets from the hackers appeared, the “Cyber Caliphate” logo and slogan disappeared, replaced by a blue square.

Then shortly after 1 p.m., the Twitter account was labeled as suspended. Moments later, the Central Command’s YouTube account apparently was suspended.

“We can confirm that the U.S. Central Command Twitter and YouTube accounts were compromised earlier today,” said a defense official. “We are taking appropriate measures to address the matter. I have no further information to provide at this time.”

The White House said it was looking into the hack, but had little information and played down the significance of the intrusion.

“There is a significant difference between…a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary.

The tweets posted by the hackers included phone number of top military commanders and what the group said were military scenarios for a conflict with North Korea and China.

A senior Pentagon official said the information posted by the hackers on the Twitter account didn’t appear to be highly classified documents.

“It does not appear to be anything problematic,” the official said.

–Felicia Schwartz and Carol E. Lee contributed to this article.

Write to Julian E. Barnes at [email protected]

French Government Does NOT Get a Pass

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The world watched in horror the bloody events in Paris at the hands of militants. A great deal of work is going into investigations and research to determine names, backgrounds, connections and causes of the terror in France.

The background, cells and names rising to the surface are not new to the intelligence communities allied with the United States. What is new is that the governmental leadership(s) in Europe, North Africa and the West ignored the intelligence clarion calls for alarm.

Going back to 2005 and even earlier, mining open source information, the Buttes Chaumont information has been out there. The brothers of the Paris attacks were only the most recent members of the Buttes Chaumont terror cell. There were clearly other brothers and members that were festering a decade ago.

 

‘The first cell in this network was named the “19th arrondissement” or “Buttes Chaumont” cell, which both brothers were a part of. Farid Benyettou, a charismatic self-taught preacher who lectured outside various mosques and prayer groups, including the Addawa mosque of the 19th arrondissement, led this cell. Although Redouane died, Boubaker was in charge of a way station in Syria for French youths headed to Iraq. El-Hakim did not last long, though, since the Assad regime arrested him in 2004, imprisoned him for a year, and then extradited him to France in 2005.
El-Hakim would be sentenced in 2008 to seven years for his involvement in the recruitment ring. This would have kept him imprisoned through 2015, but he ended up only serving 2/3 of his term and was then deported to Tunisia sometime in 2012. Since then, el-Hakim’s name has popped up in reports on militants around Chaambi Mountain in western Tunisia. Again, it is hard to assess these claims since there is almost no way of independently verifying them. That said, due to his past connections within a jihadi recruitment network and al-Qaeda in Iraq, it would not be far-fetched if he indeed did have some type of connection or relationship with AQIM.
At the same time, due to the murky nature of el-Hakim’s presence in Tunisia and the dearth of solid information on the connections between AQIM and AST, it is too early to come to any real conclusions.’

The New York Times is data mining as well as has offered some current insight but the paper omits the feeble policy by the French leadership to deal with the dark yet active cell connections in France and in Northern Africa. The intelligence IS there but quite possibly passed to the side out of lack of law enforcement, lack of policy and lack of will.

It is a tragedy that France had to deploy more that 85,000 personnel to track down the killers in France while some many victims died. For the next several weeks, collaboration on intelligence and policy will occur include the United States.

PARIS — They jogged together or did calisthenics along the hilly lawns and tulip-dotted gardens of Buttes-Chaumont, the public park in northeastern Paris built more than a century ago under Emperor Napoleon III. Or they met in nearby apartments with a janitor turned self-proclaimed imam, a man deemed too radical by one local mosque because of his call for waging jihad in Iraq.

The group of young Muslim men, some still teenagers, became known to the French authorities as the Buttes-Chaumont group after the police in 2005 broke up their pipeline for sending young French Muslims from their immigrant neighborhood to fight against American troops in Iraq. The arrests seemingly shattered the group, and some officials and experts were skeptical that members ever posed a threat to France.

But the shocking terror attacks last week in Paris have now made plain that the Buttes-Chaumont network produced some of Europe’s most militant jihadists, including Chérif Kouachi, one of the three terrorists whose three-day rampage left 17 people dead and who was killed by the police.

Other alumni from the group have died in Iraq or remained committed to radical Islam, including a French-Tunisian now aligned with the Islamic State who has claimed responsibility for a handful of assassinations in Tunisia, including the July 2013 murder of a leading left-wing politician.

“They were considered the least dangerous,” Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies and specialist on French Islamic terror cells, said of the Buttes-Chaumont group. “And now you see them really at the forefront.”

Now French authorities, while still piecing together how such violent attacks could have been staged in the capital, must also be concerned by the possibility that other homegrown groups may be passing unnoticed — or may be similarly underestimated.

The attacks suggest the prospect of a potent intermingling among some members of the original Buttes-Chaumont group and other extremists. Their meeting place, apparently, was the French prison system.

There, their radicalism hardened as some members of the group came together with other prominent jihadists who were connected to more extensive and dangerous militant networks.

For decades, France has endured Islamic terror threats and attacks, from Iranian-inspired groups during the 1980s, to Algerian extremists in the 1990s, to cells linked to Al Qaeda before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

More recently, French and other European security services have grown increasingly alarmed by thousands of young, alienated Muslim citizens who have enlisted for jihad in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

In each decade, a familiar pattern has emerged: a radicalized minority of European Muslims — whether they have gone abroad for jihad or not — have been angered and inspired by wars the West has waged in the Arab world, Africa and beyond, and have sought to bring the costs of those conflicts home.

After French authorities swept up members of the Buttes-Chaumont group in the 2005, during his time in prison Chérif Kouachi came under the sway of an influential French-Algerian jihadist who had plotted to bomb the United States Embassy in Paris in 2001.

There, he also recruited a holdup artist named Amedy Coulibaly, the man who killed four hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris on Friday.

It is unclear if his older brother, Saïd Kouachi, who also took part in the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper office, was a member of the Buttes-Chaumont group, but the authorities have confirmed that the older brother spent time in Yemen between 2009 and 2012, getting training from a branch of Al Qaeda.

 

Felony Charges Against General Petraeus?

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Prosecutors Said to Seek Felony Charges against Petraeus

By and

To keep him from running for president?

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. and Justice Department prosecutors have recommended bringing felony charges against retired Gen. David H. Petraeus for providing classified information to his former mistress while he was director of the C.I.A., officials said, leaving Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to decide whether to seek an indictment that could send the pre-eminent military officer of his generation to prison.

The Justice Department investigation stems from an affair Mr. Petraeus had with Paula Broadwell, an Army Reserve officer who was writing his biography, and focuses on whether he gave her access to his C.I.A. email account and other highly classified information. F.B.I. agents discovered classified documents on her computer after Mr. Petraeus resigned from the C.I.A. in 2012 when the affair became public.

Mr. Petraeus, a retired four star-general who served as commander of American forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has said he never provided classified information to Ms. Broadwell, and has indicated to the Justice Department that he has no interest in a plea deal that would spare him an embarrassing trial. A lawyer for Mr. Petraeus, Robert B. Barnett, said Friday he had no comment.

Mr. Holder was expected to decide by the end of last year whether to bring charges against Mr. Petraeus, but he has not indicated how he plans to proceed. The delay has frustrated some Justice Department and F.B.I officials and investigators who have questioned whether Mr. Petraeus has received special treatment at a time Mr. Holder has led an unprecedented crackdown on government officials who reveal secrets to journalists.

The protracted process has also frustrated Mr. Petraeus’s friends and political allies, who say it is unfair to keep the matter hanging over his head. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, wrote to Mr. Holder last month that the investigation had deprived the nation of wisdom from one of its most experienced experts.

“At this critical moment in our nation’s security,” he wrote, “Congress and the American people cannot afford to have his voice silenced or curtailed by the shadow of a long-running, unresolved investigation marked by leaks from anonymous sources.”

Since his resignation from the C.I.A. on Nov. 10, 2012, Mr. Petraeus has divided his time between teaching, making lucrative speeches and working as a partner in one of the world’s largest private-equity firms, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

Mr. Holder has said little publicly about the investigation. the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked by reporters in December why it was taking so long, said: “I can’t say. I mean, I guess I could say, but I won’t say.”

Marc Raimondi, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment on the investigation. Several officials who discussed it did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

At a news conference shortly after Mr. Petraeus resigned, President Obama said he had no evidence that Mr. Petraeus had disclosed classified information “that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security.”

“We are safer because of the work that Dave Petraeus has done,” Mr. Obama said, referring to his career in government. “And my main hope right now is — is that he and his family are able to move on and that this ends up being a single side note on what has otherwise been an extraordinary career.”

But investigators concluded that, whether or not the disclosure harmed national security, it amounted to a significant security breach in the office of one of the nation’s most trusted intelligence leaders. They recommended that Mr. Petraeus face charges, saying lower-ranking officials had been prosecuted for far less.

Federal agents stumbled onto the affair after Jill Kelley, a friend of Mr. Petraeus, complained to the F.B.I. that she had received anonymous threatening emails about her relationship with Mr. Petraeus. F.B.I. agents opened a cyberstalking investigation, traced the message to Ms. Broadwell and began searching her emails. That is when they discovered evidence that she and Mr. Petraeus were having an affair.

Mr. Petraeus is said to have begun the affair with Ms. Broadwell in 2011, soon after taking the job at the C.I.A. and she was interviewing him for her book, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.”

Mr. Petraeus resigned from the the C.I.A. three days after Mr. Obama was re-elected. In a brief statement, Mr. Petraeus admitted to the affair, saying that “after being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment.”

“Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours,” Mr. Petraeus said, referring to the C.I.A. “This afternoon, the president graciously accepted my resignation.”

Mr. Petraeus, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, took command of American forces in Iraq in 2007, one of the lowest points in the war. Al Qaeda controlled large parts of the country, and dozens of American soldiers were dying each month. Mr. Petraeus directed the so-called “surge” of American forces that helped stablize Iraq enough so that the United States could withdraw its troops under Mr. Obama. In 2010, Mr. Obama chose him to lead American forces in Afghanistan, where the Taliban was gaining territory. Mr. Petraeus had some success — although not nearly as much as he had in Iraq.

Along with his acumen on the battlefield, Mr. Petraeus was considered a natural political operator in Washington, where he easily navigated the politics of Congress, the White House and the Pentagon. He fielded calls to run for president and cultivating a larger-than-life media image. All the while, he remained a trusted adviser to Mr. Obama, who appointed him to lead the C.I.A. in 2011.