Student Visas Equal Terror and Spies?

US student visa program’s ‘many vulnerabilities’ raise spying, terror fears

FNC: From potential terrorists who enroll at phony schools only to melt into the U.S. population, to foreign scientists who come to study weapons technology at America’s top schools, the student visa program is allowing dangerous enemies into the country, a former top federal official told FoxNews.com.

Recent attention has been focused on refugee programs and illegal border crossings, but the Achilles heel in America’s immigration system may be the program that invites 1.2 million foreigners into the U.S. each year, according to Claude Arnold, retired special agent in charge for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Los Angeles bureau of Homeland Security Investigations. Once here on student visas, immigrants are barely monitored and tens of thousands don’t show up for classes and fall off the government radar.

“Our legal immigration system has many vulnerabilities and the student visa program is no different,” Arnold said. “It is only a matter of time before there is either some horrible criminal act, or some act of terrorism, and there is absolutely no information available that would have caused [authorities] to go out and pick that person up.”

“It is only a matter of time before there is either some horrible criminal act, or some act of terrorism, and there is absolutely no information available that would have caused [authorities] to go out and pick that person up.”

– Claude Arnold, retired ICE special agent in charge

Most of student visa recipients do exactly what they said they would do when they applied – take advantage of America’s vaunted system of higher education and leave when the terms expire. But every year, approximately 58,000 overstay their visas and drop out of contact with authorities. While the vast majority of those are not terrorists or spies, some are, said Arnold.

ICE’s 7,000 agents simply don’t have the ability to monitor all of them, Arnold said. By the time a red flag goes up, it may be too late.

“You have to conduct a threat assessment and go after those who are a threat to national security,” Arnold said. “But within that universe of people who are visa overstays, there could be people who are radicalized, and we just don’t know it because there is no intelligence on them,” he added.

Foreign enemies know how to exploit the student visa program, Arnold said. Iran, in particular, has sent scientists to the U.S., ostensibly to study other subjects, but really to gain knowledge to benefit Iran’s weapons program.

“My concern was we had Iranian students who studied at Iran’s big physics school and were essentially nuclear physicists working on their bomb project,” Arnold said. “We had cases where they would register for a mechanical engineering class in the U.S., but really all they were trying to do is get access to an aeronautical engineering program, so they could work on the delivery system for Iran’s nuclear program.”

The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security share responsibility for screening applicants and monitoring them once they arrive.

ICE officials told FoxNews.com each school that takes in visa recipients has a designated official who serves as a point of contact between students, the school and the government’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program to ensure the federal computer tracking system is updated. In addition, 58 field representatives visit approved schools twice a year to ensure compliance.

The State Department, which oversees part of the student visa program, told FoxNews.com in an emailed statement it is committed to a “transparent and efficient visa application process,” and maintains extensive programs to vigorously combat and investigate visa fraud.

Fraud prevention managers engage in public outreach, training, detailed review of cases, statistical analysis and other activities, including communicating with host government officials and U.S. law enforcement authorities, the statement said.

Applicants are screened by a host of federal agency databases and personnel against databases of fingerprints of known and suspected terrorists, wanted persons, immigration law violators, and more than 75.5 million criminal history records.

ICE statistics show countries sending their students include several considered by the U.S. as State Sponsors of Terrorism, including Syria and Iran, as well as Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan. More than 700 Syrians came to the U.S. via the student visa program in 2014, and another 3,700 came from Iran the same year.

“We don’t really know if State’s efforts are effective or if they are helping reduce fraud and abuse of visa programs, because Department of Homeland Security refuses to release a report detailing the number of overstays in each visa category and from each country, even though Congress has mandated this report since at least 2004,” said Jessica Vaughan, a former State Department consular officer who now is the director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, DC-based research institute.

“What I am worried about is students who are allowed to get a student visa to attend some nondescript school and then they disappear,” said Vaughan, who noted that Hani Hanjour, the 9/11 hijacker who flew Flight 77 into the Pentagon, had obtained a student visa but never showed up for class.

Too often, schools play along. ICE has cracked down in recent years on “visa mills,” or facilities that help foreigners get a student visa for a fee, but never hold classes or ensure students attend class. Three California residents pleaded guilty last March in a “pay-to-stay” scheme involving three sham schools in Los Angeles.

The schools had legitimate-sounding names, like Walter Jay M.D. Institute and the American College of Forensic Studies, and took in millions of dollars in tuition fees. But investigators found classes that were supposed to hold 30 students had just few, if any students. According to Arnold, who oversaw the investigation, the schools existed only to facilitate foreign students’ purchase of visas under the guise of studying.

“This is an example where the system worked,” said Arnold.

In addition to better screening and monitoring, Arnold believes overstaying a visa should be a misdemeanor. That might make visa holders less likely to violate the terms, and would also trigger alarms if they were stopped for a traffic violation or arrested for another reason.

Arnold and Vaughan also want tighter controls on the kinds of schools that can accept foreign students. Some trade school programs that teach subjects like massage, baking and horseshoeing could invite fraud. And courses that teach material with military applications invite something even more sinister, Arnold said.

“Why do we want people who are our enemies, whether it is potentially ISIS or Iran, here learning technical skills they are going to use against us?” he said. “It is insane.”

State Dept Covered up Hillary’s Email Server for Years

State Department covered up Hillary’s private email server for years even though ‘dozens of senior officials’ knew about it, says scathing inspector general report

  • Critical report from State Department’s own internal watchdog details abuse of Freedom of Information Act while Clinton ran the agency
  • 177 of the 240 FOIA requests lodged for information about Hillary while she was secretary of state are still pending three years after she left office
  • State told a liberal group it had no information about Hillary’s emails in 2013 even though many senior officials were emailing her on her private server 
  • The U.S. State Department told a watchdog group in 2013 that it didn’t have any information about former secretary Hillary Clinton’s emails, even though ‘dozens of senior officials’ knew she was using a private server for all her electronic communications.
  • A report released Thursday by the agency’s inspector general – a powerful and impartial internal investigator – described a cavalier culture about transparency inside Clinton’s agency, saying that 177 requests for documents about Clinton are still ‘pending’ nearly three years after she left office.
  • The Freedom of Information Act requires federal agencies to respond to requests for information within 20 business days.
  • The botched FOIA request, filed in December 2012 just before Clinton left office, specifically asked whether or not Clinton used an email account other than one hosted at state.gov.
  • Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal group, was reacting to news that former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson had used an alias – ‘Richard Windsor’ – to send and receive emails in a way that couldn’t be tied to her when FOIA requests came in.
  • In May 2013 the State Department responded to CREW’s request, saying it had ‘no records’ related to what the group asked for.
  • By then, Clinton had spent four years emailing department employees from her private home-brew account, but had never turned the messages over to the State Department.
  • That CREW request was filed in December 2012, just before Mrs. Clinton left office, and specifically asked whether Mrs. Clinton used anon-State.gov email account for government business.
  • ‘At the time the request was received, dozens of senior officials throughout the Department, including members of Secretary Clinton’s immediate staff, exchanged emails with the Secretary using the personal accounts she used to conduct official business,’ the Office of Inspector General concluded.
  • ‘OIG found evidence that the Secretary’s then-Chief of Staff was informed of the request at the time it was received and subsequently tasked staff to follow up. However, OIG found no evidence to indicate that any of these senior officials reviewed the search results or approved the response to CREW.’
  • The employees responsible for searching the State Department’s records, the report says, never ‘searched any email records, even though the request clearly encompassed emails.’
  • State has received an unprecedented crush of requests for Clinton-related documents – 240 in all, a number bigger than those related to secretaries Madeline Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice and John Kerry combined.
  • But the inspector general found that the agency cut the number of people processing those FOIA requests as they poured in.
  • Clinton’s emails sat on her private server for years until the State Department asked her in 2014 to turn them over. She deleted more than half of the messages, calling them ‘personal’ in nature, before complying.
  • In the meantime, however, her emails were out of reach when federal employees searched for records that might satisfy FOIA requests.

 

 

Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said Thursday in a statement that ‘the FOIA process at the State Department is broken, and has been for several years.’

The agency’s breakdowns in performance, he said, ‘are particularly troubling in light of the report’s revelation that former Secretary Clinton’s exclusive use of a non-government email server was known to senior staff at the department, but unknown to the FOIA office, thus causing the FOIA office to provide false information about the Secretary’s use of email.’

The FOIA law, first enacted in 1966 before the advent of personal computers, ‘neither authorizes nor requires agencies to search for Federal records in personal email accounts maintained on private servers or through commercial providers,’ the inspector general report explained.

State Department employees have ‘no way to independently locate Federal records from such accounts unless employees take steps to preserve official emails in Department recordkeeping systems.’

Current law requires State Department employees to forward work-related personal emails to their official accounts within 20 days of sending or receiving them, so the agency has a record of them.

But Clinton never had a ‘state.gov’ account where her emails could be sent.

A federal judge ultimately ordered the State Department to collect her emails, vet them for classified material, and release them on a monthly schedule.

So far intelligence officials have had to block the release of portions of more than 1,200 emails because they contained classified information.

THAAD vs. North Korea weapon test

I was asked today if the facts told by North Korea launching a thermonuclear weapon was accurate. My response was kinda sorta. The matter of North Korea performing this launch test was no surprise for those paying attention as North Korea warned of this last month.

One would think that after this recent North Korea test and the three previous tests, the National Security Council, the White House and the Pentagon would announce the placement of all offensive measures with respect to North Korea and Iran…so far…nothing announced at all. Hummmm.

This test appears to be a hybrid weapon of sorts or a primary test launch for that they are designing and building. Either way, there are many widespread implications and it is necessary to put China and Iran into the blame equation. The Obama White House as well as the John Kerry State Department immediately threw cold water on the whole notion of accuracy in the successful post launch announcement. Of course they did given this administration is not equipped or opposed enough to condemn the action except to pass it off to the United Nations for a lame and feeble isolation resolution.

What never does get mention is what are the defenses against a successful more destructive launch either by Iran or North Korea? We DO have them.

Missile Defense

Learn about THAAD. Perhaps a courtesy of Ronald Reagan and his ‘star wars’ mission.

THAAD = Terminal High Altitude Area Defense

THAAD

THAAD


Gertz/FreeBeacon: Preliminary U.S. intelligence estimates have concluded that North Korea’s fourth underground nuclear test on Tuesday involved a small explosion that could be a component of a larger-scale thermonuclear device.

U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports of the underground test estimated the low yield of the detected blast to be between 5 kilotons to 7 kilotons—far less than would be detected in a two-stage thermonuclear blast, or hydrogen bomb.

The Pyongyang government announced that the test that took place Wednesday morning local time at a nuclear testing site in northeast North Korea and that it was a successful “first H-bomb test.”

The test was announced in two official statements broadcast on state-run radio and television.

Unlike the past three nuclear tests, the regime conducted the test with no advance notice. Past tests were preceded by stern public warnings in state-run media.

Also in a break with practice, the two official North Korean statements asserted the test was directly ordered by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. A copy of Kim’s written order was shown on North Korean television, and he was shown signing the order.

kimorder

Another unusual feature in the handling of the nuclear test were statements indicating the blast was carried out “safely and flawlessly” without harming the environment. The statements noted that North Korea is a responsible nuclear power and would not be the first to use nuclear arms in a conflict and would not transfer nuclear technology unless “hostile forces infringe upon its sovereignty.”

Initial U.S. intelligence analysis of the official statements indicates the test had two goals.

One key objective for the underground blast was to bolster statements last month by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that the North has developed a hydrogen bomb.

By conducting the test, Kim is seeking to cement his position within the regime. The supreme leader turns 33 on Friday and is widely viewed by intelligence analysts as inexperienced, compared to his father and grandfather, Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung.

A second objective of the test was to persuade China, North Korea’s main patron, to back off pressuring the regime to abandon its nuclear program.

The harsh language used in the official statement—including a threat to adopt a more hostile posture in the coming months—were interpreted as a sign that the current tense relations with China over its opposition to the nuclear program was a main driver behind the surprise nuclear test.

“Initial reports indicate the North Koreans may be bragging a little bit too much,” said one official of the claims of a hydrogen bomb test.

The test was widely reported on social media shortly after it took place based on detection of a 5.1 magnitude seismic event Tuesday evening near a nuclear test site called Punggye-ri, in Kilju, North Hamgyong Province.

The test prompted international condemnation but a limited reaction from the Obama administration, which sought to play down the latest nuclear provocation.

In New York, the United Nations held an emergency meeting during which additional sanctions on North Korea were discussed. Sanctions were imposed after earlier nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, and 2013.

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who was briefed on the test by Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. Forces in Korea, spoke by telephone to South Korean Defense Minister Han Min Koo. Both officials agreed the test was an “unacceptable and irresponsible provocation” as well as a “flagrant violation of international law and a threat to the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the entire Asia-Pacific region,” according to a statement.

Carter stressed in the call the United States was committed to maintaining U.S. extended nuclear deterrence protection for South Korea.

The White House said the United States and regional allies would take up the test at the United Nations, which sanctioned North Korea for past nuclear and missile tests.

“What is true is that North Korea continues to be one of the most isolated nations in the world and their isolation has only deepened as they have sought to engage in increasingly provocative acts,” spokesman Josh Earnest said.

On Capitol Hill, senior Republican leaders criticized the Obama administration for weak policies toward the rogue state.

House Speak Paul Ryan said the increasing nuclear threat posed by North Korea grew out of the failed nuclear agreement with North Korea reached by the Bill Clinton administration.

“This is exactly what happens when we appease and embolden rogue regimes,” Ryan said, noting the test had not been confirmed.

“President Obama has been guilty of this on more than one occasion,” he added, noting failed policies in Syria and Iran.

“The world is a safer place when we stand up to brutal regimes like those in Tehran, Damascus, and Pyongyang—and that’s not happening under our current president,” Ryan said.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry said the test shows “the world is rapidly growing more dangerous, and the United States cannot afford to focus only on ISIS or Iran or Russia.”

“We must be prepared to protect our national security against many threats,” Thornberry said. “Unfortunately, the view around the world is that U.S. leadership is in decline while the administration’s inaction only fuels those concerns.”

Thornberry called for deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in South Korea and for strengthening the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, criticized the president’s policies.

“We are watching seven years of President Obama’s failures play out—this is what ‘leading from behind’ has wrought,” said Rogers (R., Ala.)

“While the president has wasted his two terms in office, North Korea has continued to develop its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons capabilities,” Rogers added.

Former Pentagon nuclear forces official Mark Schneider said the reported low yield of the test indicates the blast was not a thermonuclear device.

“It could be a fission trigger or primary for a thermonuclear weapon,” he said.

Schneider said nuclear specialists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are betting at estimating nuclear yields than U.S. intelligence agencies, which during the Cold War consistently underestimated Soviet thermonuclear tests.

“If the yield is significantly higher than the 6-kt estimated in [news reports], it could be more than a primary test,” Schneider added.

North Korea is estimated to have a stockpile of between one and several dozen missile-deliverable warheads.

Rep. Mike Pompeo, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the North Korean nuclear threat is “a frightening vision of a future with President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.”

“This is yet another example of how President Obama and former secretary [of state Hillary] Clinton’s policy of ‘strategic patience’ with North Korea has led the U.S. down a perilous path, and we are in urgent need of a new approach,” said Pompeo (R., Kan.)

“We cannot continue President Obama’s policy of turning a blind eye to North Korea and Iran.”

A Chinese government spokesman said Beijing opposed the test but warned Japan not to take provocative counter actions in response.

China has sought to rein in North Korea military provocations, including nuclear and long-range missile tests.

“We strongly urge [North Korea] to remain committed to its denuclearization commitment, and stop taking any actions that would make the situation worse,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

The European Union, in a statement, said that if the test blast is confirmed as nuclear it would be “a grave violation” of North Korea’s international obligations under U.N. resolutions not to produce or test nuclear weapons.

A nuclear test would be “a threat to the peace and security of the entire North East Asia region,” the EU said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg criticized the announced nuclear test. “I condemn the continued development by North Korea of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and its inflammatory and threatening rhetoric,” he said.

The latest nuclear test was not a surprise and followed a recent boast from Kim, the North Korean leader, that his state had developed a thermonuclear bomb.

South Korea’s Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Defense Command, a Defense Ministry group, stated in a report made public Sunday that a nuclear test was expected but that it likely would not be a large-scale thermonuclear blast.

“We can’t discount the possibility that the North’s excavation of a new tunnel at its Punggye-ri test site could be designed for thermonuclear weapons tests,” command said. “Considering its research of nuclear technology, its history of underground and projectile tests, and elapsed time since its nuclear development, North Korea has the foundation for thermonuclear weapons, the report added according to the semi-official Yonhap news agency.

Thermonuclear bombs are advanced weapons that employ a nuclear blast to create a larger hydrogen blast.

Former Defense Intelligence Agency official Bruce Bechtol said if the test was a hydrogen bomb “this means the North Koreans are advancing their nuclear weaponization program at a faster and more efficient—and deadly—pace than most analysts have predicted in the past.”

“Yes it changes things,” he added. “It increases the possibilities regarding the threat that North Korea can pose to South Korea, the region, and the USA.”

The nuclear test follows North Korea’s successful submarine missile ejection test Dec. 21 from a submerged submarine. The test was regarded by U.S. intelligence agencies as a significant advance in Pyongyang’s bid to develop nuclear-armed submarine-launched missiles.

The submarine used in the test, known as the Gorae, or Whale, suffered a serious malfunction in attempting an ejection test Nov. 28. That test nearly sank the submarine, which returned to port listing at a 45-degree angle, according to U.S. officials.

Who’s Calling the Shots in State Politics?

Exactly what else do voters need to be aware of? Who is winning the liberal-progressive agendas at the state level? Do you pay attention to the language on ballot initiatives? Do you know the background and the money and players behind them?

Read on….

National liberal groups to push ‘record’ number of 2016 ballot measures

Efforts to circumvent legislative logjam counter grassroots origins

PublicIntegrity: Paul Spencer, a teacher and part-time pecan farmer in Arkansas, drafted a ballot measure for 2016 to reform the state’s campaign finance laws so his fellow voters could know who paid for election ads on TV.

But he and fellow activists there knew they couldn’t do it alone. They sought the help of national election-reform groups because in Arkansas, as in many other states, initiatives can cost millions of dollars to pass.

Liberal groups working at the national level are using state ballot initiatives as their weapon of choice for 2016, but given the costs, they’re carefully planning exactly where to push these measures. And Spencer’s Arkansas proposal didn’t make the cut for 2016.

That top-down approach seems ironic. The initiative process was put in place at the beginning of the 20th century as a way for local citizens such as Spencer to band together to pass laws. And voters on the ground may not be aware that national groups are helping fuel the ballot fights in their backyards.

Still, national liberal leaders see state ballot measures as their best option for winning on some issues. Dismayed at their prospects in Congress and in Republican-dominated state legislatures, national liberal groups plan to use ballot initiatives to push raising the minimum wage in Maine, legalizing marijuana in Massachusetts, closing gun sale loopholes in Nevada, guarding endangered species in Oregon — and other campaigns in at least eight additional states.

National conservative groups, meanwhile, seem poised to play defense, setting up a battle of outsiders on state playing fields. In March, Republican-linked politicos launched the Center for Conservative Initiatives in Washington, D.C., to counter the liberal ballot measures they anticipate will arrive in record numbers nationwide in 2016.

“Liberal groups have been forced to spend heavily on ballot initiatives in an effort to circumvent elected representatives because in states around the country the public has overwhelmingly rejected their out-of-touch candidates and messages,” said the Center’s leader, Matt Walter, in an email.

The push from outsiders to pass pet policies via the ballot has occurred before, on everything from land conservation in North Dakota to how to cage chickens in California, sometimes leading to big-money fights between corporations, advocacy groups and others.

“There’s this perception out there that the initiative process is all about the little guy,” said Jennie Bowser, a consultant who for many years studied ballot measures for the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. “But the truth of the matter is that it’s a big business. It’s really well organized, and it’s really well funded. And it is very, very rarely a group of local citizens who get together and try to make a difference.”

Passing popular ideas

In 2014, when a Republican wave gave conservatives more U.S. Senate seats and governors’ mansions, left-leaning activists still managed to notch victories for the minimum wage, gun control and marijuana legalization through ballot measures in Nebraska, South Dakota, Illinois, Arkansas, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia.

In 2015, they followed with wins for campaign-finance reform in Seattle and Maine.

Those successes, as well as the chance to draw more left-leaning voters to the polls, are encouraging liberal activists to push hard on the 2016 ballot.

 

Russia’s Cyber Warfare, Threat Matrix to USA

Cyber Warfare

The Russian government is considered to be one of the most advanced cyber actors globally, with highly sophisticated cyber capabilities on par with the other major cyber powers. Open source information about Russian cyber programs and funding is scarce, but an ultimate goal of the government is to gain information superiority, both in peacetime and in military conflicts.

According to U.S. intelligence, Russia is a top nation state threat to American interests. Russian armed forces have been establishing a cyber command and a specialized branch to carry out computer network operations. It is likely that Russia aspires to integrate cyber into all military services. For example, the Russian government news agency TASS has reported that strategic missile forces are establishing special cyber units, and according to Russian general Yuri Kuznetsov, cyber defense units in the Russian armed forces will acquire operational capabilities by 2017.

Researchers from China have observed that Russian armed forces have rehearsed both attacking an adversary’s cyber targets and defending themselves against cyber attacks. It is believed that Russia, in addition to its espionage over the last decade against Western governments, is conducting its own active research and development of cyber weapons. It has also been alleged that FSB develops sophisticated computer malware programs.

However, despite a belief shared by many that Russia possesses capabilities to conduct cyber network attacks with physical effects equivalent to a kinetic attack, in the recent hybrid conflicts in Georgia and Ukraine, only a limited use of cyber attacks has been recorded. No physical damage, or disruption of critical infrastructure or weapons has been reported, but there is evidence that Russian actors are capable of taking down services. For example, Russian APT28 (Pawn Storm/Sofacy/Tsar Team) shut off transmissions of French TV5 Monde for 18 hours, and its cyber attacks allegedly resulted in significant damage to the channel’s infrastructure. Moreover, the Ukrainian security service (SBU) reported in December 2015 that Russian security services have planted malware into the networks of Ukrainian regional power companies. Power outages are reported to have occurred shortly thereafter. However, due to the lack of investigation and evidence, it is not possible to attribute these outages to any actors.

The majority of analysts concede that Russian cyber attacks have been closely coordinated with military operations both in Georgia and Ukraine. As part of their information warfare campaign, Russians used electronic warfare (EW) and signals intelligence in both theatres. Much less known is the fact that in March 2014, Russian EW forces rerouted internet traffic from Crimean servers to Russian servers, most likely for eavesdropping purposes. There is also consensus that the effects of Russian cyber attacks have been limited – in Georgia, cyber attacks created a military advantage only at the operational and tactical levels, and in Ukraine, Russian cyber attacks had only a short term tactical effect. Hence in both theatres, strategic effects (diminishing opponent’s will or capacity to resist) and military effects (degrading performance of opponent’s military) were not achieved.

The most sophisticated cyber capabilities used in these conflicts have been cyber espionage campaigns sponsored or supported by the Russian government. For example, security companies have gathered evidence indicating that APT28 (which targeted the Georgian government), and APT29 (whose targets are consistent with Russian government interests in regards to the Ukrainian conflict) were both sponsored by the Russian government. Russian APTs possess sophisticated cyber capabilities (e.g. ability to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities, target mobile devices, evade detection, and hide operational command and control). Furthermore, a prominent cyber espionage campaign against the Ukrainian military and government officials, Operation Armageddon, has been attributed by SBU to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). This has been corroborated by technical evidence from an independent security company.

In addition to gathering intelligence, some Russian APTs are able to remotely access industrial control systems (ICS). A cyber espionage group Sandworm (that has been active in Ukraine) uses BlackEnergy malware that is believed to also be embedded into critical infrastructure in the U.S. It is interesting to note that four Russian APTs have been using particular types of malware, which suggests links between these actors.

Russia is developing asymmetric measures to offset the West’s technological and conventional edge. While total information superiority has not been attained, the final outcome of the cyber build up is uncertain, and it will continue to be a topic of concern for businesses and nations for the foreseeable future.