Tillerson Approves North Korea Visit to DC?

Posted on February 20, 2017February 20, 2017 by Denise Simon

Washington prepares to bring North Koreans to U.S. for talks: report

Reuters: Preparations are under way to bring senior North Korean officials to the United States for talks with former U.S. officials, the first such meeting in more than five years, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The talks would be the clearest indication yet that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wants to communicate with the new Trump administration.

Planning for the “Track 1.5 talks” is still in a preparatory stage, the Post reported, citing multiple people with knowledge of the arrangements.

That name, reflecting planned contact between former U.S. officials and current North Korean ones, is a reference to what are known as “Track 2” talks involving former officials on both sides.

The U.S. State Department has not yet approved the North Koreans’ visas for the talks, the newspaper said.

A State Department spokesman commented to Reuters only that Track 2 meetings “routinely” take place on a variety of topics around the world and occur independent of the U.S. government.

A White House official commented that the U.S. government had no plans to meet with North Korea.

North Korea’s testing of an intermediate-range ballistic missile drew international condemnation last week. President Donald Trump told a news conference after the test: Obviously North Korea is a big, big problem and we will deal with that very strongly.”

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Who is suggested to attend this confab, Bill Richardson? Can the representatives of the United States be in talks with North Korea without including Iran, China or Russia? Not likely. It was not all that long ago that President Trump took a phone call from Taiwan which infuriated China. Trump said he would not be dictated to by China, only to later say he stood for a one China policy. How does China point to policy matters regarding North Korea?

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NewsMax: The U.S. policy of maintaining sanctions and military pressure on North Korea while refusing to talk to the country isn’t working and will only make matters worse, a Chinese official said Saturday, venting Beijing’s impatience with the stalemate over its isolated neighbor.

“China just keeps on telling you this is not working, although we’re going along with you,” Fu Ying, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee of China’s legislature and was a vice foreign minister until 2013, said at the Munich Security Conference. “You have to realize — without talking with them, you will only drive them in the wrong direction further.”

Fu was flanked on stage by South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, in a rare public airing of differences between the U.S. and South Korea on the one side, and China on the other. President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded China do more to rein in its neighbor and force it to abide by United Nations Security Council resolutions aimed at curbing the North’s nuclear ambitions.

Earlier Saturday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it will halt coal imports from North Korea through the end of the year, stripping Kim Jong-un’s regime of a crucial source of income. No reason was given, although analysts pointed to the murder earlier this week of Kim’s older half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, at a Malaysian airport. He had lived outside North Korea for many years and had close links to China.

Trump’s administration is pushing forward with plans to deploy a missile-defense system known as Thaad in South Korea. Concerns over North Korea’s intentions were only inflamed after the regime carried out a missile test on Feb. 12. More here from NewsMax.

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There is full and joint collaboration between Iran and North Korea on missile development and testing. Those launched by both countries are coordinated.

Pentagon: Iran Tested a Ballistic Missile With North Korean Origins

Missile tested by Tehran originally came from Pyongyang.

Pentagon identified the July 2016 missile as a locally produced version of the Musudan, a North Korean intermediate-range missile. Also known as the Hwasong-10, the missile is allegedly derived from an obsolete Soviet Cold War missile, the R-27 Zyb.

The Musudan has been adapted from a submarine-launched missile to a road-mobile missile, and is launched from 12-wheeled heavy transporters. The missile has a payload of 2,000 to 2,500 pounds and a theoretical maximum range of 2,500 miles. The range of the missile is open to some debate because so far, despite Pyongyang’s claims to the contrary, it hasn’t been successfully tested. North Korea may have launched as many as eight Musudans in 2016 alone, and not a single launch was considered successful by outside observers. More here.

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On Sunday, February 12, 2017, North Korea conducted the first test launch of its “Pukguksong-2, solid-fuel missile,” a land-based version of the KN-11 Pukguksong-1 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), but not from the facility that almost all media sources have reported.[1] The development of the Pukguksong-2 was not unexpected and the system successfully flew a lofted trajectory, reaching an estimated altitude of 575 km and flying approximately 500 km before falling into the East Sea (Sea of Japan).[2]

Almost all initial reporting indicated that the missile was launched from the Panghyon Airbase in North Pyongan Province, located in the northwest. When, however, North Korea released still and video imagery of the test it was clear to North Korea watchers that the test was not conducted from the Panghyon Airbase, but from the Iha-ri Vehicle Testing and Driver Training Facility approximately 9.5 km to the north-northeast.[3] The choice of the Iha-ri facility was undoubtedly due to its proximity (only 5 km) to the No. 95 Factory (Kusong Tank Factory) where it is believed the transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) and its support vehicles were designed and manufactured.[4] It is likely that the Pukguksong-2 pre-test imagery released by North Korea was taken here. Read more here.

An overview image of the Pukguksong-2 launch and Iha-ri Facility. Seen in the background are the preparation shed [C], headquarters and administration buildings [A and B] and the security wall [D]. The propaganda placards [E] and inclined vehicle test hill [G] are visible in the foreground.

(Photo: KCNA)

Presidential Daily Briefing for Trump on Russia

Posted on February 16, 2017February 16, 2017 by Denise Simon

There are rumors flying that the intelligence agencies are holding back on key items that would otherwise be included in the PDB’s, especially items regarding Russia. Okay, we cannot know for sure that is true or not. In fact there are denials this is accurate. While countless media outlets are reporting that some ‘higher-ups’ in some intel agencies are in a war with President Trump, it is all because he is in a war with them. Sheesh….while all this is going on, other allied world leaders are watching all this and are feeling quite uneasy over intelligence collaboration and most especially where all this leads.

Image result for russian spy ship norfolk, virginia

Some one needs to restore order and confidence here and do it fast. At issue is Russia and Iran.

The Russian spy ship doing an ‘in-your-face’ Atlantic coast water adventure and is presently just outside of Norfolk, Virginia and headed back to the Cuba region.
Meanwhile, the new Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson is in Germany meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Another item is General Dunford is in Azerbaijan, meeting with Russian Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces, Gerasimov.
Qassem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Qods Force is in Moscow. Soleimani has a U.S. and U.N. travel ban and sanctions on him such that he is not allowed to travel. Hah…
Ciaran Martin, head of GCHQ’s new National Cyber Security Centre states that Russia is escalating the rate of hacks against the UK. The United States, Canada, Australia and the UK are the four countries of record that make up GCHQ.
Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work met with Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Pavlo Klimkin at the Pentagon regarding discussion over the recent escalation of violence by combined Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.
Because of Russian aggression and the lasting threat to the Baltic States, General Mattis has ordered U.S. troops deploy in Bulgaria.
Russian troops attacked Ukrainian positions 139 times using heavy armor in all sectors in Donbas in the past 48 hours.

9. Russia tells White House it will not return Crimea to Ukraine.

10. Russia has secretly deployed a new cruise missile that American officials say violates a landmark arms control treaty, posing a major test for President Trump as his administration is facing a crisis over its ties to Moscow. The missile (Kalibr) is a SSC-8. It is a nuclear capable missile first tested in 2008. While this launch was ground based, it can also be launched from a submarine and is capable of holding 1000 lbs of conventional explosives or a nuclear warhead. There are variants to this weapon, there is also the Iskander and the 9M728. Nonetheless, it is a violation of the INF Treaty.

Lastly and a very good thing, while Vladimir Putin is calling for full intelligence cooperation with the United States, General Mattis has not, no….not ready. Further, Mattis said that Russia needs to prove itself….tic tic tic…

11. Soldiers, tanks and M88 recovery vehicles from the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment’s “Fighting Eagles” recently arrived at the airbase in Romania in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve. So far, more than 350 U.S. soldiers have arrived this month with another 150 set to arrive before the end of February.

So, should there be some normalizing of relations between the White House and the Kremlin? Nah….has not worked out so well when it comes to Iran or Cuba…

Russian Aggression, Testing U.S. Navy, Rattling the WH?

Posted on February 14, 2017February 14, 2017 by Denise Simon

After President Obama expelled Russian diplomats, shuttered two Russian compounds and added more sanctions on Russia, there was no immediate response from the Kremlin. Or was there a response we are just learning about? Seems Moscow at the orders of Vladimir Putin did decided to reply and did so aggressively.

On the heels of North Korea launching a missile capable of having a nuclear weapon tip while the Prime Minister of Japan was visiting the United States, seems was an opportune time for Russia to additionally do much the same with these two other provocative actions. Nothing from the Pentagon just yet either.

Russian jets in ‘unsafe’ encounters with destroyer: U.S. official

U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Porter sails in the Bosphorus, on its way to the Mediterranean Sea, in Istanbul, Turkey, February 11, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Reuters: Multiple Russian military aircraft came close to a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Black Sea on Feb. 10, incidents considered “unsafe and unprofessional,” a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

There were three separate incidents involving Russian aircraft and the USS Porter, Captain Danny Hernandez, a spokesman for U.S. European Command, said. One involved two Russian Su-24 jets, another a separate Su-24, and the third involved a larger IL-38.

“USS Porter queried all aircraft and received no response,” Hernandez said.

“Such incidents are concerning because they can result in accident or miscalculation,” he added.

The incidents involving the Su-24 were considered to be unsafe and unprofessional by the commanding officer of the Porter because of their high speed and low altitude, while the IL-38 flew at an unusually low altitude, Hernandez said.

Another U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the closest incident that day involved the lone SU-24, which came within 200 yards of the Porter at an altitude of 300 feet (91 meters).

This is not the first time interactions have taken place between Russian jets and U.S. ships. In April 2016 two Russian warplanes flew simulated attack passes near a U.S. guided missile destroyer in the Baltic Sea. The flights by the warplanes were so close they created wake in the water.

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Russia sends spy ship near US coast, deploys banned missiles at home, officials say

FNC: A Russian spy ship was spotted patrolling off the East Coast of the United States on Tuesday morning, the first such instance during the Trump administration — and the same day it was learned the Kremlin had secretly deployed controversial cruise missiles inside Russia and buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials told Fox News.

The Russian ship was in international waters, 70 miles off the coast of Delaware and heading north at 10 knots, according to one official. The U.S. territory line is 12 nautical miles.

It was not immediately clear where the ship is headed.

Later Tuesday, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that Russia had deployed ground-launched cruise missiles to two locations inside the country in December. The New York Times first reported that the Obama administration had previously seen the missiles — then in a testing phase — as a violation of a 1987 treaty between the U.S. and Russia that banned ground-launched intermediate-range missiles.

But Russia has pressed ahead with its program, apparently testing a Trump administration which has sought better ties with Moscow — but is also fresh off the loss of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned Monday night in the wake of a scandal surrounding his communications with Russia.

The ship, the SSV-175 Viktor Leonov, last sailed near the U.S. in April 2015, an official said. It was also seen in Havana in January 2015.

The Russian spy ship is also armed with surface-to-air missiles.

“It’s not a huge concern, but we are keeping our eyes on it,” one official said.

This action by the Russian military follows recent missile test launches by Iran and North Korea.

In the past, Russian spy ships have loitered off the coast of Kings Bay, Ga., home to a U.S. Navy ballistic missile submarine base. During the Cold War, Russian intelligence gathering ships routinely parked off U.S. submarine bases along the East Coast

In September 2015, another Russian spy ship was spotted near the U.S. outside the submarine base in Kings Bay.

Outside of U.S. intelligence gathering satellites monitoring the Russian spy ship’s voyage north, there are several airborne platforms along the East Coast that could be used by the U.S. military to monitor the Russian ship, according to one official.

Currently there are four U.S. Navy warships in the Atlantic off the coast of Norfolk participating in normal training, but none have been tasked with shadowing the Russian spy ship.

There are no U.S. Navy aircraft carriers nearby. The USS Eisenhower, an aircraft carrier, is currently off the coast of Florida doing carrier qualifications, with young pilots making their first landings. Ike does not currently have strike aircraft. More here from FNC.

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This Russian ship presently off the coast of Delaware began in Cuba and is expected to continue heading north to the New London, CT area and will turn around heading south again. It is know as a Vishnya class ship (AGI, Auxiliary, General Intelligence) and the ships are armed with two AK-630 close-in weapon systems and SA-N-8 SAM launchers. These ships are large, purpose built ships designed for signal and communications intelligence electronic information gathering via an extensive array of sensors.^[3] The data could be transmitted to shore via satellite link antennas housed in two large radomes. The Russian Navy operates seven of these ships.

Operation Blockbuster: Lazarus Group Hacks Again

Posted on February 13, 2017February 13, 2017 by Denise Simon

Why should you care? There was a long investigation in separate yet concentrated efforts by both government and private/independent cyber corporations as it related to the hack of Sony. Enter the Lazarus Group, an applied name to hackers that have hit industries such as government, military, financial and entertainment. Few countries are really exempt, as their signature malware has also been found in Japan, India and China.

Image result for lazarus group cyber

Lazarus Group has been active since 2009 and to date cannot be attributed to any single actor or country.

For the comprehensive report, go here. Operation Blockbuster: Image result for operation blockbuster cyber

Recent malware attacks on Polish banks tied to wider hacking campaign

Hackers targeted more than 100 organizations in more than 30 countries

ComputerWorld: Malware attacks that recently put the Polish banking sector on alert were part of a larger campaign that targeted financial organizations from more than 30 countries.

Researchers from Symantec and BAE Systems linked the malware used in the recently discovered Polish attack to similar attacks that have taken place since October in other countries. There are also similarities to tools previously used by a group of attackers known in the security industry as Lazarus.

The hackers compromised websites that were of interest to their ultimate targets, a technique known as watering-hole attacks. They then injected code into the websites that redirected visitors to a custom exploit kit.

The exploit kit contained exploits for known vulnerabilities in Silverlight and Flash Player; the exploits only activated for visitors who had Internet Protocol addresses from specific ranges.

“These IP addresses belong to 104 different organizations located in 31 different countries,” researchers from Symantec said in a blog post Sunday. “The vast majority of these organizations are banks, with a small number of telecoms and internet firms also on the list.”

In the case of the targeted Polish banks, it’s suspected that the malicious code was hosted on the website of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, the government watchdog for the banking sector. The BAE Systems researchers found evidence that similar code pointing to the custom exploit kit was present on the website of the National Banking and Stock Commission of Mexico in November. This is the Mexican equivalent to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority.

The same code was also found on the website of the Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay, the largest state-owned bank in that South American country, according to BAE Systems.

Included in the list of targeted IP addresses were those of 19 organizations from Poland, 15 from the U.S., nine from Mexico, seven from the U.K., and six from Chile.

The payload of the exploits was a previously unknown malware downloader that Symantec now calls Downloader.Ratankba. Its purpose is to download another malicious program that can gather information from the compromised system. This second tool has code similarities to malware used in the past by the Lazarus group.

Lazarus has been operating since 2009, and has largely focused on targets from the U.S. and South Korea in the past, the Symantec researchers said. The group is also suspected of being involved in the theft of $81 million from the central bank of Bangladesh last year. In that attack, hackers used malware to manipulate the computers used by the bank to operate money transfers over the SWIFT network.

“The technical/forensic evidence to link the Lazarus group actors … to the watering-hole activity is unclear,” the BAE Systems researchers said in a blog post Sunday. “However, the choice of bank supervisor and state-bank websites would be apt, given their previous targeting of central banks for heists — even when it serves little operational benefit for infiltrating the wider banking sector.”

The Other NSA Thief Indicted, Worse than Snowden?

Posted on February 13, 2017February 13, 2017 by Denise Simon

What is going on at the NSA? Or is it really the NSA contractor, Booz, Allen and Hamilton? Either way…this is beyond dangerous.

Bring in Harold Martin….. Image result for harold martin nsa NBC

Read the full indictment here.

According to an indictment released Wednesday, the information stolen by Harold Martin, a former NSA contractor who was arrested in August of last year, may be far more damaging to the U.S. intelligence community than anything taken by Edward Snowden.

On October 5, the New York Times broke the story that the FBI had arrested an employee of the intelligence community over suspicions the worker had stolen highly classified computer code.

From that report:

“The contractor was identified as Harold T. Martin III of Glen Burnie, Md., according to a criminal complaint filed in late August and unsealed Wednesday. Mr. Martin, who at the time of his arrest was working as a contractor for the Defense Department after leaving the NSA, was charged with theft of government property and the unauthorized removal or retention of classified documents.”

According to the Times, a neighbor saw “two dozen FBI agents wearing military-style uniforms and armed with long guns” storm Martin’s home and later escort the man out in handcuffs.

At the time, there was speculation that Martin could be connected to stolen NSA code that found its way into the hands of a group called the Shadow Brokers — for a period, Martin worked for the elite NSA unit from which the data was taken — but even now, authorities can’t prove he actually passed on any information.

But the mere fact that he possessed such highly sensitive material is enough to put Martin away for the rest of his life, as the recently released indictment indicates.

“For more than two decades,” Business Insider wrote on Thursday, “Martin allegedly made off with highly-classified documents that were found in his home and car that included discussions of the US military’s capabilities and gaps in cyberspace, specific targets, and ‘extremely sensitive’ operations against terror groups, according to an indictment released Wednesday.”

The indictment gives the public a much clearer look at the type of data Martin allegedly stole. And next to Edward Snowden, whose security clearance limited the documents he took to mostly training materials, it appears Harold Martin’s reach went far further into the national intelligence community.

Martin is charged with 20 counts of having unauthorized possession of classified material. The government alleges that over this long intelligence career, the 51-year-old took material from the NSA, the National Reconnaissance Office, U.S. Cyber Command, and even the CIA.

Some of the items allegedly taken, according to text from the indictment, include:

A 2008 CIA document containing information regarding foreign intelligence collection sources and methods, and relating to a foreign intelligence collection target.

A USCYBERCOM document, dated August 17, 2016, discussing capabilities and gaps in capabilities of the US military and details of specific operations.

A description of the technical architecture of an NSA communications system.

An outline of a classified exercise involving real-world NSA and US military resources to demonstrate existing cyber intelligence and operational capabilities.

Martin’s first court appearance is set for February 14. If found guilty, he faces up to 200 years in prison. More here.

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Meanwhile, Putin is allegedly considering returning Edward Snowden to the United States as a goodwill gesture. If so, it is a double game as Putin would never do anything out of kindness without something attached. If Snowden does stand trial for treason/espionage or theft, the United States would then have to offer up classified material and reveal sources and methods which is likely what Russia wants. The Kremlin extended the visa for Snowden until 2020.

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In part from NBC: Snowden’s ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner, told NBC News they are unaware of any plans that would send him back to the United States.

“Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern,” Wizner said.

Snowden responded to NBC’s report on Twitter and said it shows that he did not work with the Russian government.

“Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel,” Snowden said. “No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they’re next.”

Snowden’s Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, reacted to the report with dismay.

“There are no reasons to extradite Edward Snowden to the U.S.,” Kucherena said, according to TASS, the state-owned news agency. “This is some kind of speculation coming from so-called US special service sources. I think this topic was and remains on the political plane in the U.S., but it’s American special services that are puppeteering this story with sporadic information plants.”

“There is not the slightest reason to raise or discuss this topic in Russia,” Kucherena said.

Russia, he said, does not sell people. “The Snowden issue cannot be a bargaining chip on any level, neither political nor economic,” he said, according to the news agency.

Former deputy national security adviser Juan Zarate urged the Trump administration to be cautious in accepting any Snowden offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“For Russia, this would be a win-win. They’ve already extracted what they needed from Edward Snowden in terms of information and they’ve certainly used him to beat the United States over the head in terms of its surveillance and cyber activity,” Zarate said.