Drip, Drip, Drip

According to a new report (German) by Der Spiegel, the British signals intelligence spy agency has again employed a “quantum insert” technique as a way to target employees [...] of two companies that are GRX (Global Roaming Exchange) providers.

[...]

Der Spiegel suggests that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British sister agency to the NSA, used spoofed versions of LinkedIn and Slashdot pages to serve malware to targets. This type of attack was also used to target “nine salaried employees” of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the global oil cartel.

  NYTimes

According to a top-secret NSA presentation provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, one successful technique the NSA has developed involves exploiting the Tor browser bundle [an online anonymity network], a collection of programs designed to make it easy for people to install and use the software. The trick identifies Tor users on the Internet and then executes an attack against their Firefox web browser.

The NSA refers to these capabilities as CNE, or computer network exploitation.

[...]

The very feature that makes Tor a powerful anonymity service, and the fact that all Tor users look alike on the Internet, makes it easy to differentiate Tor users from other web users. On the other hand, the anonymity provided by Tor makes it impossible for the NSA to know who the user is, or whether or not the user is in the US.

After identifying an individual Tor user on the Internet, the NSA uses its network of secret Internet servers to redirect those users to another set of secret Internet servers, with the codename FoxAcid, to infect the user's computer.

[...]

Once the computer is successfully attacked, it secretly calls back to a FoxAcid server, which then performs additional attacks on the target computer to ensure that it remains compromised long-term, and continues to provide eavesdropping information back to the NSA.

  Bruce Schneier

SPIEGEL: What would be the consequences for Snowden if he were to return to the United States?

McCain: He'd go on trial, but he's not coming back.

SPIEGEL: Even next year when his asylum in Russia expires?

McCain: Never. President Vladimir Putin will grant him asylum indefinitely. The Russians know if they send him back that that's a lesson to other people who might defect. I'm sure that Mr. Snowden has told them everything that he possibly knows.

SPIEGEL: He denies that and says that he did not take the NSA documents to Russia.

McCain: If you believe that Mr. Snowden didn't give the Russians information that he has, then you believe that pigs can fly. And you might also believe that I am a consummate asshat.

  Der Spiegel

If you look closely, you might be able to pick out the statement that I added, and which McKnucklehead didn’t actually say.

Pigs flying: