Cyber Security on the Skids, Blinking RED

Posted on June 24, 2015June 24, 2015 by Denise Simon

Recorded Future is a real time open source intelligence collection company that determines trends and predictions of emerging threats.

Recorded Future identified the possible exposures of login credentials for 47 United States government agencies across 89 unique domains.

As of early 2015, 12 of these agencies, including the Departments of State and Energy, allowed some of their users access to computer networks with no form of two-factor authentication. The presence of these credentials on the open Web leaves these agencies vulnerable to espionage, socially engineered attacks, and tailored spear-phishing attacks against their workforce.

The damage has yet to be fully realized and cannot be overstated. Where is the White House? Where are the protections? Where is a policy? Major alarm bells as you read on.

From Associated Press:

Tech company finds stolen government log-ins all over Web

WASHINGTON (AP) — A CIA-backed technology company has found logins and passwords for 47 government agencies strewn across the Web – available for hackers, spies and thieves.

Recorded Future, a social media data mining firm backed by the CIA’s venture capital arm, says in a report that login credentials for nearly every federal agency have been posted on open Internet sites for those who know where to look.

According to the company, at least 12 agencies don’t require authentication beyond passwords to access their networks, so those agencies are vulnerable to espionage and cyberattacks.

The company says logins and passwords were found connected with the departments of Defense, Justice, Treasury and Energy, as well as the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence.

From the WSJ: Obama’s Cyber Meltdown

“While Russia and Islamic State are advancing abroad, the Obama Administration may have allowed a cyber 9/11 at home.”

If you thought Edward Snowden damaged U.S. security, evidence is building that the hack of federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) files may be even worse.

When the Administration disclosed the OPM hack in early June, they said Chinese hackers had stolen the personal information of up to four million current and former federal employees. The suspicion was that this was another case of hackers (presumably sanctioned by China’s government) stealing data to use in identity theft and financial fraud. Which is bad enough.

Yet in recent days Obama officials have quietly acknowledged to Congress that the hack was far bigger, and far more devastating. It appears OPM was subject to two breaches of its system in mid-to-late 2014, and the hackers appear to have made off with millions of security-clearance background check files.

These include reports on Americans who work for, did work for, or attempted to work for the Administration, the military and intelligence agencies. They even include Congressional staffers who left government—since their files are also sent to OPM.

This means the Chinese now possess sensitive information on everyone from current cabinet officials to U.S. spies. Background checks are specifically done to report personal histories that might put federal employees at risk for blackmail. The Chinese now hold a blackmail instruction manual for millions of targets.

These background checks are also a treasure trove of names, containing sensitive information on an applicant’s spouse, children, extended family, friends, neighbors, employers, landlords. Each of those people is also now a target, and in ways they may not contemplate. In many instances the files contain reports on applicants compiled by federal investigators, and thus may contain information that the applicant isn’t aware of.

Of particular concern are federal contractors and subcontractors, who rarely get the same security training as federal employees, and in some scenarios don’t even know for what agency they are working. These employees are particularly ripe targets for highly sophisticated phishing emails that attempt to elicit sensitive corporate or government information.

The volume of data also allows the Chinese to do what the intell pros call “exclusionary analysis.” We’re told, for instance, that some highly sensitive agencies don’t send their background checks to OPM. So imagine a scenario in which the Chinese look through the names of 30 State Department employees in a U.S. embassy. Thanks to their hack, they’ve got information on 27 of them. The other three they can now assume are working, undercover, for a sensitive agency. Say, the CIA.

Or imagine a scenario in which the Chinese cross-match databases, running the names of hacked U.S. officials against, say, hotel logs. They discover that four Americans on whom they have background data all met at a hotel on a certain day in Cairo, along with a fifth American for whom they don’t have data. The point here is that China now has more than enough information to harass U.S. agents around the world.

And not only Americans. Background checks require Americans to list their contacts with foreign nationals. So the Chinese may now have the names of thousands of dissidents and foreigners who have interacted with the U.S. government. China’s rogue allies would no doubt also like this list.

This is a failure of extraordinary proportions, yet even Congress doesn’t know its extent. The Administration is still refusing to say, even in classified briefings, which systems were compromised, which files were taken, or how much data was at risk.

***
While little noticed, the IRS admitted this spring it was also the subject of a Russian hack, in which thieves grabbed 100,000 tax returns and requested 15,000 fraudulent refunds. Officials have figured out that the hackers used names and Social Security data to pretend to be the taxpayers and break through weak IRS cyber-barriers. As Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has noted, the Health and Human Services Department and Social Security Administration use the same weak security wall to guard ObamaCare files and retirement information. Yet the Administration is hardly rushing to fix the problem.

Way back in March 2014, OPM knew that Chinese hackers had accessed its system without having downloaded files. So the agency was on notice as a target. It nonetheless failed to stop the two subsequent successful breaches. If this were a private federal contractor that had lost sensitive data, the Justice Department might be contemplating indictments.

Yet OPM director Katherine Archuleta and chief information officer Donna Seymour are still on the job. Mr. Obama has defended Ms. Archuleta, and the Administration is trying to change the subject by faulting Congress for not passing a cybersecurity bill. But that legislation concerns information sharing between business and government. It has nothing to do with OPM and the Administration’s failure to protect itself from cyber attack.

Ms. Archuleta appears before Congress this week, and she ought to remain seated until she explains the extent of this breach. While Russia and Islamic State are advancing abroad, the Obama Administration may have allowed a cyber 9/11 at home.

Obama has Synchronized Iran’s Nuclear Program

Posted on June 24, 2015June 24, 2015 by Denise Simon

Consider the stated position of the Supreme leader of Iran:

Reuters and AFP – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated his country’s red lines for a nuclear deal with six world powers.

“Freezing Iran’s research and development for a long time like 10 or 12 years is not acceptable,” Khamenei said in a speech broadcast live on June 23.

Khamenei, who has the final say for Iran on any deal, added that all financial and economic sanctions “should be lifted immediately” if an agreement is signed.

Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the United States want Tehran to commit to a verifiable halt of at least 10 years on sensitive nuclear development work as part of a deal they aim to reach by a June 30 deadline. In exchange, they are offering relief from economic sanctions.

Khamenei reiterated that Iran would not give international inspectors access to its military sites and accused the United States of wanting to destroy Iran’s nuclear industry.

The six powers want limits on Tehran’s programs that could have a military use.

Tehran denies it is pursuing nuclear weapons.

***

When the NYT finally prints an explosive fantasy piece on what the White House and John Kerry at the State Department are doing with Iran, one needs to take notice. The New York Times calls this Iran agreement a ‘fatal flaw’.

The Iran Deal’s Fatal Flaw

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S main pitch for the pending nuclear deal with Iran is that it would extend the “breakout time” necessary for Iran to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. In a recent interview with NPR, he said that the current breakout time is “about two to three months by our intelligence estimates.” By contrast, he claimed, the pending deal would shrink Iran’s nuclear program, so that if Iran later “decided to break the deal, kick out all the inspectors, break the seals and go for a bomb, we’d have over a year to respond.”

Unfortunately, that claim is false, as can be demonstrated with basic science and math. Most important, in the event of an overt attempt by Iran to build a bomb, Mr. Obama’s argument assumes that Iran would employ only the 5,060 centrifuges that the deal would allow for uranium enrichment, not the roughly 14,000 additional centrifuges that Iran would be permitted to keep mainly for spare parts. Such an assumption is laughable. In a real-world breakout, Iran would race, not crawl, to the bomb. Iran stands to gain enormously. The deal would lift nuclear-related sanctions, thereby infusing Iran’s economy with billions of dollars annually. In addition, the deal could release frozen Iranian assets, reportedly giving Tehran a $30 billion to $50 billion “signing bonus.”

Showering Iran with rewards for making illusory concessions poses grave risks. It would entrench the ruling mullahs, who could claim credit for Iran’s economic resurgence. The extra resources would also enable Iran to amplify the havoc it is fostering in neighboring countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Worst of all, lifting sanctions would facilitate a huge expansion of Iran’s nuclear program. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, says that he wants 190,000 centrifuges eventually, or 10 times the current amount, as would appear to be permissible under the deal after just 10 years. Such enormous enrichment capacity would shrink the breakout time to mere days, so that Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb before we even knew it was trying — thus eliminating any hope of our taking preventive action.

Nothing in the pending deal is worth such risks. Read the full article in context here.

*** But is getting worse as new documents demonstrate.

Reported by Fox News via Associated Press:

The United States and its allies are willing to offer Iran state-of-the-art nuclear equipment if Tehran agrees to pare down its atomic weapons program as part of a final nuclear agreement, a draft document has revealed.

The confidential paper, obtained by the Associated Press, has dozens of bracketed text where disagreements remain. Technical cooperation is the least controversial issue at the talks, and the number of brackets suggest the sides have a ways to go, not only on that topic but also more contentious disputes, with less than a week until the June 30 deadline for a deal.

However, the scope of the help now being offered in the draft may displease U.S. congressional critics who already argue that Washington has offered too many concessions at the negotiations.

The draft, titled “Civil Nuclear Cooperation,” promises to supply Iran with light-water nuclear reactors instead of its nearly completed heavy-water facility at Arak, which would produce enough plutonium for several bombs a year if completed as planned. The full details are here.

Civil Nuclear Cooperation platform is not new.

Chilling are the following facts:

Russia and Saudi Arabia have signed a nuclear cooperation agreement. The U.S. has done the same with Korea. Then comes Pakistan learning from U.S. and India where pacts could lead to even more proliferation globally.

For a more detailed summary of the Nuclear Cooperation agreements, take a look at a surface review on equipment, supply and banks in the matter of Korea.

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.’

How Did Valerie Jarrett Pass a Background Check

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

Now this also begs the question, what did Obama know, did he approve and what is he going to do now?

The 73 page FBI file on Valerie Jarrett’s family is found here. The father is noted here.

From Judicial Watch:

FBI Files Document Communism in Valerie Jarrett’s Family

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files obtained by Judicial Watch reveal that the dad, maternal grandpa and father-in-law of President Obama’s trusted senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, were hardcore Communists under investigation by the U.S. government.

Jarrett’s dad, pathologist and geneticist Dr. James Bowman, had extensive ties to Communist associations and individuals, his lengthy FBI file shows. In 1950 Bowman was in communication with a paid Soviet agent named Alfred Stern, who fled to Prague after getting charged with espionage. Bowman was also a member of a Communist-sympathizing group called the Association of Internes and Medical Students. After his discharge from the Army Medical Corps in 1955, Bowman moved to Iran to work, the FBI records show.

According to Bowman’s government file the Association of Internes and Medical Students is an organization that “has long been a faithful follower of the Communist Party line” and engages in un-American activities. Bowman was born in Washington D.C. and had deep ties to Chicago, where he often collaborated with fellow Communists. JW also obtained documents on Bowman from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) showing that the FBI was brought into investigate him for his membership in a group that “follows the communist party line.” The Jarrett family Communist ties also include a business partnership between Jarrett’s maternal grandpa, Robert Rochon Taylor, and Stern, the Soviet agent associated with her dad.

Jarrett’s father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, was also another big-time Chicago Communist, according to separate FBI files obtained by JW as part of a probe into the Jarrett family’s Communist ties. For a period of time Vernon Jarrett appeared on the FBI’s Security Index and was considered a potential Communist saboteur who was to be arrested in the event of a conflict with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). His FBI file reveals that he was assigned to write propaganda for a Communist Party front group in Chicago that would “disseminate the Communist Party line among…the middle class.”

It’s been well documented that Valerie Jarrett, a Chicago lawyer and longtime Obama confidant, is a liberal extremist who wields tremendous power in the White House. Faithful to her roots, she still has connections to many Communist and extremist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Jarrett and her family also had strong ties to Frank Marshal Davis, a big Obama mentor and Communist Party member with an extensive FBI file.

JW has exposed Valerie Jarrett’s many transgressions over the years, including her role in covering up a scandalous gun-running operation carried out by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Last fall JW obtained public records that show Jarrett was a key player in the effort to cover up that Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about the Fast and Furious, a disastrous experiment in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) allowed guns from the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of hundreds of weapons which have been used in an unknown number of crimes, including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.

In 2008 JW got documents linking Valerie Jarrett, who also served as co-chairman of Obama’s presidential transition team, to a series of real estate scandals, including several housing projects operated by convicted felon and Obama fundraiser/friend Antoin “Tony” Rezko. According to the documents obtained from the Illinois Secretary of State, Valerie Jarrett served as a board member for several organizations that provided funding and support for Chicago slum projects operated by Rezko.

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.”