And Trump doesn't plan on losing.
From the Democracy Docket newsletter...
The Trump administration introduced a new budget proposal calling for a near $500 million cut to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the nation’s top federal entity responsible for protecting elections from hacking.
Department of pre-crime.A MICHIGAN STATE POLICE CONTRACT, obtained by The Intercept, sheds new light on the growing use of little-known surveillance software that helps law enforcement agencies and corporations watch people’s social media and other website activity.
The software, put out by a Wyoming company called ShadowDragon, allows police to suck in data from social media and other internet sources, including Amazon, dating apps, and the dark web, so they can identify persons of interest and map out their networks during investigations. By providing powerful searches of more than 120 different online platforms and a decade’s worth of archives, the company claims to speed up profiling work from months to minutes. ShadowDragon even claims its software can automatically adjust its monitoring and help predict violence and unrest. Michigan police acquired the software through a contract with another obscure online policing company named Kaseware for an “MSP Enterprise Criminal Intelligence System.”
The Intercept
Jesus Chriat.In December 2020, a U.S. cybersecurity company announced it had recently uncovered a massive cyber breach. The hack dates back to March 2020, and possibly even earlier, when an adversary, believed to be Russia, hacked into the computer networks of U.S. government agencies and private companies via SolarWinds, a security software used by many thousands of organizations in the U.S. and around the world.
New York Times cyber security reporter Nicole Perlroth calls the SolarWinds hack "one of the biggest intelligence failures of our time."
"We really don't know the extent of it," Perlroth says. "What we know is that this thing has hit the Department of Homeland Security — the very agency charged with keeping us safe — the Treasury, the State Department, the Justice Department, the Department of Energy, some of the nuclear labs, the Centers for Disease Control."
Perlroth says the fact that the breach went undetected for so long means that the hackers likely planted "back door" code, which would allow them to re-enter the systems at a later date.
"We're still trying to figure out where those back doors are," Perlroth says. "And that could take months, if not years, to get to the bottom of."
[...]
"We are one of the most advanced, if not the most advanced cyber superpower in the world, but we are also its most targeted and its most vulnerable," she says.
Part of the problem, Perlroth says, is that the U.S. has spent more energy on hacking other countries than on defending itself.
[...]
SolarWinds, the cyber security company through which the hackers entered, which used the password "solarwinds123".
NPR
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway."When I started calling up some of the victims of this attack, many of them didn't even know they used SolarWinds software until it came out that the company was breached. ... So what we were looking at really was a company that didn't have very good security, but that was touching some of the most sensitive systems we have. This was used inside the Pentagon. The NSA used that. We know that the Treasury used it and all the other victims that are coming out, including our utility companies.
[...]
"Originally when this hack was discovered, one of the bright spots was that they believed that the hackers had not made their way into classified systems. But what I kept hearing from security researchers and people who worked at these agencies was just how much vulnerable data was outside these classified systems. And one of those things was Black Start.
"Black Start is just a very technical document. And it's essentially a to-do list. If we were able to have a major power failure, it says, you know, we're going to go turn on the power here first, then we're going to move over here and do this. And with that document in hand, that could be very valuable for an adversary because it would essentially give them the perfect hit list to make sure that the power stayed off."
On a recent cyber attack on the water supply in Oldsmar, Fla., in which hackers attempted to increase the amount of lye in the drinking water
[...]
"This is really dangerous. You know, they increased the amount of lye in the water from 100 parts per million to 11,000 parts per million. It just so happened that there happened to be a software engineer sitting at his computer watching his cursor move around on his screen and then later watched someone go into these functions and upped the amount of chemical.
[...]
"I think it's just a wake-up call in general that a lot of these facilities allow contractors and engineers to get in, get remote access from miles away or across the country. And I think we need to start rethinking that access. Do we really want strangers being able to get into these systems from afar? And I think right now would be a good time to ask ourselves. And I think the answer is probably no."
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.President Biden said Thursday that his administration is launching an “urgent initiative” to improve the nation’s cybersecurity, pointing to concerns around malign efforts by Russia and China.
“We’ve elevated the status of cyber issues within our government,” Biden said as part of a national security speech at the State Department. “We are launching an urgent initiative to improve our capability, readiness and resilience in cyberspace.”
The Hill
Why should we believe IRS wasn't "compromised" when so many other agencies were?“Finance Committee staff was briefed today on the SolarWinds hack, and I appreciate Treasury and IRS officials sharing what they know as they continue to learn more. According to IRS, there is no evidence that IRS was compromised or taxpayer data was affected. However, the hack of the Treasury Department appears to be significant."
Senate Committee on Finance
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway."Microsoft notified the agency that dozens of email accounts were compromised. Additionally the hackers broke into systems in the Departmental Offices division of Treasury, home to the department’s highest-ranking officials. Treasury still does not know all of the actions taken by hackers, or precisely what information was stolen.
“Finally, after years of government officials advocating for encryption backdoors, and ignoring warnings from cybersecurity experts who said that encryption keys become irresistible targets for hackers, the USG has now suffered a breach that seems to involve skilled hackers stealing encryption keys from USG servers.”
Hmmmmm.Hackers backed by a foreign government have been monitoring internal email traffic at the US treasury department and an agency that decides internet and telecommunications policy.
[...]
There is concern within the US intelligence community that the hackers who targeted the treasury department and the commerce department’s national telecommunications and information administration used a similar tool to break into other government agencies, according to three people briefed on the matter. The people did not say which other agencies.
The hack is so serious it led to a national security council meeting at the White House on Saturday.
[...]
Staff emails at the agency were monitored by the hackers for months, sources said.
[...]
“This is a nation state,” said a different person briefed on the matter. “We just don’t know which one yet.“
[...]
The investigation is still in its early stages and involves a range of federal agencies, including the FBI.
Guardian
The Russian government hackers who breached a top cybersecurity firm are behind a global espionage campaign that also compromised the Treasury and Commerce departments and other U.S. government agencies, according to people familiar with the matter.
WaPo
The agency within the Commerce Department that was hacked was said to be the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is in charge of advising the president on telecommunications issues. According to Reuters, those briefed on the matter fear that other government agencies could have been hacked as well.
Daily Beast
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.The government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it has been working with other agencies “regarding recently discovered activity on government networks. CISA is providing technical assistance to affected entities as they work to identify and mitigate any potential compromises.”
President Donald Trump last month fired the director of CISA, Chris Krebs, after Krebs vouched for the integrity of the presidential election and disputed Trump’s claims of widespread electoral fraud.
[...]
Last Tuesday, prominent U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye said that foreign government hackers with “world-class capabilities” broke into its network and stole offensive tools it uses to probe the defenses of its thousands of customers. Those customers include federal, state and local governments and top global corporations.
The hackers “primarily sought information related to certain government customers,” FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia said in a statement, without naming them.
Boston 25
Apparently, frequently switching numbers allows him to believe he's a super cyber guy. Or just a super important guy. Or maybe a criminal?This fall, as Giuliani has emerged as a central figure in the impeachment inquiry, his clumsy phone comportment has often become worldwide news, adding extra absurd wrinkles to the already absurd saga of a quid pro quo in Ukraine and raising questions about how a chronic butt-dialer who wears his AirPods upside down could be a White House cybersecurity adviser.
There was the time he accidentally called NBC’s Rich Schapiro and left a voice-mail in which he could be heard alleging that Joe Biden’s family was corrupt. Or the time he accidentally called Schapiro again and left a voice-mail that documented a conversation about overseas business in which he said, “We need a few hundred thousand.” Or when he texted Axios’ Jonathan Swan a voice recording in which he could be heard “talking to a guy,” as Swan described it. “I couldn’t make any sense of it or figure out how he managed to text me a recording inadvertently.” Or when he mistakenly texted what appeared to be a password to reporter Roger Sollenberger.
Giuliani is probably the most accessible star of an international political scandal in modern history, open to corresponding directly with almost anyone, anytime, telling them information that may be repetitive or mundane but that just as likely may be a real development in the story that determines the future of this presidency. (Trump, too, is known for compulsively using his phone, but to make phone calls, not text.) On big news days in Washington, it can feel like everybody is texting with Giuliani at the same time — and sometimes it’s because we are. Or we sure hope it’s Giuliani we’re talking to. “He changes numbers somewhat randomly,” one White House reporter said, “so you never really know if you’re texting the right number.” Personally, I have half a dozen numbers for Giuliani saved.
NY Magazine
You think he uses those likes as bookmarks for things he wants to use later?Giuliani uses iMessage, and, like so many men over 50 who work for Trump, he has read receipts enabled and often uses iMessage’s reaction feature to like questions sent to him instead of providing an answer. Just as often, he likes his own messages. On one occasion, he scrolled back an entire day in our conversation to add a like to a message of his own. He didn’t explain why. “It’s unclear what it means,” the White House reporter said before recounting a similarly odd, like-related experience. “He once liked a question I sent him about him being accused of illegal lobbying, and then he didn’t respond to the question about lobbying.”
This is the guy who butt-dials people. And, even better...[Giuliani] sang me an aria from Rigoletto, one of the first pieces he fell in love with when he was introduced to opera in high school, as he theatrically conducted with his hands.
Over a sweater, he wore a navy-blue suit, the fly of the pants unzipped. He accessorized with an American-flag lapel pin, American-flag woven wallet, a diamond-encrusted pinky ring, and a diamond-encrusted Yankees World Series ring (about which an innocent question resulted in a 15-minute rant about “fucking Wayne Barrett,” a journalist who manages to enrage Giuliani even in death).
In addition to being the president’s free personal attorney, Giuliani, who is 75, is an informal White House cybersecurity adviser and a high-priced cyber-security contractor.
Intelligencer
Dear god.In one hand, he clutched three phones of varying sizes. Two of the devices were unlocked, their screens revealing open tabs and a barrage of banner notifications as they knocked into each other and reacted to Giuliani’s grip. He accidentally activated Siri, who said she didn’t understand his command. “She never understands me,” he said. He sighed and poked at the device, attempting to quiet her.
Not even Siri.When I asked him to bring me somewhere he likes to hang out, he quickly directed his bodyguard to the Mark, a five-star hotel on East 77th Street. Always a creature of habit, Giuliani is extra-aware of where he’s welcome these days. He says that “because of what’s happened” his circle is tightening, that he doesn’t trust anyone anymore.
Dear god. There's such a thing as background checks. Has he forgotten? They look okay.I asked him how he ever trusted Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Russian associates with a business called Fraud Guarantee who were arrested by the FBI in October. “They look like Miami people. I know a lot of Miami people that look like that that are perfectly legitimate and act like them,” Giuliani said. “Neither one of them have ever been convicted of a crime. Neither one. And generally that’s my cutoff point, because if you do it based on allegations and claims and — you’re not gonna work with anybody,” he said, laughing. “Particularly in business.”
Pretty sure crazy people think they aren't.He said former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, whom he calls Santa Maria Yovanovitch, is “controlled” by George Soros. “He put all four ambassadors there. And he’s employing the FBI agents.” I told him he sounded crazy, but he insisted he wasn’t.
A nut case. Rudy. Not George.“Soros is hardly a Jew. I’m more of a Jew than Soros is. I probably know more about — he doesn’t go to church, he doesn’t go to religion — synagogue. He doesn’t belong to a synagogue, he doesn’t support Israel, he’s an enemy of Israel. He’s elected eight anarchist DA’s in the United States. He’s a horrible human being.”
Apparently he doesn't think he's doing that himself.While attempting to argue that, despite what has been written, “I have no business interests in Ukraine,” he told me about his business interests in Ukraine.
“I’ve done two business deals in Ukraine. I’ve sought four or five others,” he said. Since he’s been representing the president, he said, he has been approached with two opportunities in Ukraine, both of which he turned down to avoid accusations of impropriety.
“The one that I really wanted to do,” Giuliani said, was a lawsuit on behalf of the Ukrainian government against a large financial institution he claims laundered $7 billion for Viktor Yanukovych, the former president. “It would’ve had nothing to do with Trump, nothing to do with Burisma, nothing to do with Biden,” he said. He then explained that the reason why he “really wanted” to take on the case was to learn about Ukrainian money laundering, “so I could figure out they utilize the same money-laundering system for Hunter Biden.”
[...]
He reads his own press and sees that his friends, these “sources close” to him, are being weaponized by the conspirators, helping to paint a public portrait of a man unglued.
Which is just what he's doing.These are the same concerned people who have told him to be careful with his legacy. “And my attitude about my legacy is Fuck it,” he said.
There's no "if", Rudy.His ex-wife had implied, in an interview with New York, that he was an alcoholic. Others anonymously question his mental state. “Oh yeah, yeah — I do a lot of drugs,” Giuliani said sarcastically. “There was one I was addicted to. I’ve forgotten what it is. I don’t know where the drug things come from — I really don’t. The alcohol comes from the fact that I did occasionally drink. I love scotch. I can’t help it. All of the malts. And part of it is cigars — I love to have them with cigars. I’m a partier.”
And then there’s the Southern District of New York, the biggest betrayal of all. That was supposed to be his world, full of his guys; he ran the office for most of the ’80s. It was unrecognizable now. “If they’re investigating me, they’re assholes. They’re absolutely assholes if they’re investigating me,” he said.
You have to wonder why he agreed to do this interview.When his mouth closed, saliva leaked from the corner and crawled down his face through the valley of a wrinkle. He didn’t notice, and it fell onto his sweater.
Oh, please. I would pay to see that.He added that he didn’t know for sure if he was being investigated at all, though subpoenas issued to Giuliani associates by the SDNY reportedly request documents and correspondence related to Giuliani, his firm, and, specifically, “any actual or potential payment” to or from Giuliani.
[...]
“I’ve been doing this for 50 years. I know how not to commit crimes. And if they think I’ve lost my integrity, maybe they’ve lost theirs in their insanity over hating Trump with some of the things they did that I never would’ve tolerated when I was U.S. Attorney.”
He thought they might be jealous of him, he said, because, in the 30 years since he resigned with thousands of convictions under his belt, the office had declined. The new guys, the ones after him, wish they were prosecuting the mob like he did, he said.
“It’s a terrible thing to say because it will get the Southern District all upset, but I know why they’re all upset,” Giuliani said. “Because they’ve never done anything like me since me. They haven’t done an eight years like I did since I left being U.S. Attorney. Nothing close.”
"They’re all — they’re all knee-jerk, now logically impaired anti-Trump people, including James Comey’s daughter, who works there. You don’t think she’s bitter? Do you know the things that I’ve called her husband? I hired her husband.”
He meant her father.
[...]
As we walked into the hotel lobby, Giuliani said he hadn’t yet discussed the possibility of representing the president during the Senate trial, but visions of cross-examining congressional Democrats and witnesses made famous during the hearings, something he hasn’t done since the ’90s, satisfied his desire for revenge.
Oh. My. God. It was David Holmes, FFS. Please, PLEASE let Rudy do the cross-examining.“I’m great at it. It’s what I do best as a lawyer. That’s what I would be good at,” he said. “Oh, I would love it, I could rip — you know, I hate to sound like a ridiculously boastful lawyer, but cross-examining them would be, I don’t know, I could’ve done it when I was a second-year assistant U.S. Attorney. They’re a bunch of clowns.”
“You plan for days and days how you’re gonna cross-examine them,” he said of his theoretical strategy. “And try to learn his personality. You try to learn when he’s gonna lie, how he’s gonna lie. You try to learn how to make him feel comfortable and confident. You try to work on what kind of personality is he. Is he a boaster? Is he sensitive about certain things? Somebody like Biden, for example, is extraordinarily sensitive about his intellect.”
[...]
“The guy that overheard the telephone call,” for instance, “anybody check if the guy has an earpiece? Maybe he didn’t have it in. How old is he? How old is that guy?” There was a possibility that he was deaf, he said, and didn’t know what he heard. “How do we know he isn’t a paranoid schizophrenic?,” he said. “How do we know he isn’t an alcoholic?”
I guess it's not just scotch he likes.The hostess led us through a hallway to the dining room. As Giuliani walked down the carpeted ramp, he fell over to his right and hit the wall. He kept on walking as if it hadn’t happened. [...] He nodded and waved at people he knew seated across the restaurant. He stopped to shake hands with an older man and his wife.
“I’d like some sparkling water. And I know you have wonderful Bloody Marys,” Giuliani told the waiter. “Yes, sir,” the waiter said, “and I know you love them.” Giuliani laughed. “You’re a good man!,” he said.
Calling the White House is such a normal thing people do. How could anyone be expected to remember WHO they talked to there?I asked about the mysterious call logs included in the House Intelligence Committee report, which suggested that Giuliani had corresponded with someone at the White House at axial points in Trump’s back-and-forth with Ukraine. The report said the number was “associated” with the Office of Management and Budget.
“I don’t think I talked to OMB at all,” Giuliani told me. “Of course, it’s not clear. I don’t even remember. It might have been my son.” His son, Andrew Giuliani, is the president’s public-liaison assistant.
[...]
He said he sometimes calls the White House to talk to Jared Kushner, whom he likes to joke around with — “I just called to kid him because I once said he was indispensable; I thought he was dispensable” — and Dan Scavino, the longtime social-media director. But the president was often the one calling Giuliani. “He calls me a lot before work and after work. I generally don’t like to bother him in the middle of night,” he said. “I call the main switchboard, and then sometimes I get switched to another number. I don’t know who I called.”
Well, I don't doubt that part's true.He swore that although he doesn’t know whom he called, he knows he didn’t discuss anything improper with whoever it was. “Those calls — I can tell you what they don’t have to do with: They don’t have to do with military aid. I never discussed military aid with them. Never discussed military aid with anyone until it first appeared in the New York Times of late August of 2019. I had no idea we were withholding it, if we were.” He didn’t think it was such a big deal once he read about it, he said, because it was “typical Trump; he withholds aid till the last minute until he makes them beg for it.”
Whaaaaaaat?He said he and Jay Sekulow, the president’s other lawyer, often call the president together. “We both prefer to do it together, so we can have our own interpretation to the call,” he said.
Oh. My. God.He lifted the skewer of olives from his Bloody Mary and removed one with his teeth. He continued speaking as he chewed. He ordered a second Bloody Mary.
I asked Giuliani if he thought he could do a better job representing Trump in a trial than Sekulow.
[...]
“No, but he would be better arguing the case through the court than I would,” he said. “He knows the justices a lot better; he understands their temperament better.”
Still, if it ever came to it, he thought Trump might pick him instead. “If it’s a very aggressive case, he would be more comfortable with me,” he said. “He was annoyed because over the last couple of weeks I’ve been pulling all his facts together and I haven’t been on television. People who think he doesn’t like me on television, I don’t know where they get that from. It’s just the opposite.”
He made the case that the Ukrainian prosecutor fired for corruption, Viktor Shokin, was in fact not corrupt and had been forced out by the Obama administration precisely because he had the goods on the Bidens. He also claimed to have a secret source with documentary proof that Hunter Biden had been paid off through a Cyprus bank in a transaction routed through a Lithuanian bank. “When I got it” — that is, the document he claims shows this — “I had already lost Lev, and so I had no translator. I translated it with my app,” he said. He took out his phone to show me how Google Translate works.
Oh. My. God.Back in the black SUV, Giuliani directed his bodyguard to drop him at home and then take me back to my hotel. “Oh, look at those poor people,” he said, glancing out the window to the park, where a man and a woman sat on a bench. “When I was mayor, by the time I was home, there’d be a call to the head of Homeless Services. Have somebody on Fifth between 70 — is that 75 or 76? A couple, they seem to be freezing. See if we can get them in a shelter. All my commissioners were trained to do that. And we got it down to almost nothing, zero.” The couple on the bench did not appear to be homeless.
“Do you have all three phones?,” his bodyguard said as Giuliani stepped out of the car. “Yeah, I got all three phones,” he said. “I gotta get down to two. I’m gonna try that tonight.”
A few minutes later, as we made our way downtown, I saw from the corner of my eye the sun reflecting off of something. It was the screen of one of the phones, which he had left on the seat next to me.
Trump's cybersecurity adviser.I handed it to the bodyguard, who laughed. He called Giuliani to tell him, and Giuliani laughed too.
Jeanette Manfra, a top official within the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) cyber agency, announced Thursday that she will leave her position at the end of the year.
Manfra, who serves as the assistant director for Cybersecurity and Communications within the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), tweeted that stepping down was “not an easy decision.”
[...]
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and cybersecurity subcommittee Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.) praised Manfra in a joint statement on Thursday, specifically highlighting her efforts to improve election security and advance the cybersecurity of federal networks.
The Hill
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.What is most alarming is a recent exodus of at least a dozen senior cyber security officials, all of them former members of the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (OCISO). In July 2019, the White House carried out a reorganization, in which these members of the White House cyber security team were shifted into the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). In the aftermath of this shakeup, former OCISO officials have had their scope of duties removed, and many of their security privileges revoked. All of this is setting up a situation where members of the U.S. Congress are starting to wonder about the long-term security posture of the White House.
[...]
[T]he ongoing exodus of talent – in which the most prominent members of the White House cyber security team are leaving very publicly, in a way that is designed to embarrass the White House – has, of course, produced a leak of its own. The resignation letter of former White House cyber security official Dimitrios Vastakis has been leaked to the media, and it makes for some great political theater. The senior staffer says the current lack of security practices at the White House is “highly concerning.” He suggests that many of the changes in the White House cyber security team were being made in the name of convenience, not security. And he wraps up the memo by making a very grim prognostication: “I foresee the White House is posturing itself to be electronically compromised again.”
[...]
No matter which side of the political aisle you favor, one fact remains unchallenged by either side: the cyber threat landscape is more complex and more dangerous than at any time in history. Within this context, it’s perfectly legitimate to ask what the White House is planning to do about its cyber security team, or to pose questions about the overall state of cyber security preparedness within the White House.
However, as noted above, the politicization of cyber security is now very real.
CPO Magazine
Russia, if you're listening...come on in.The Oct. 17 memo, obtained by Axios, was written by senior White House cybersecurity director Dimitrios Vastakis, who oversaw its computer network defense.
In the memo, Vastakis writes that the decision in July to fold the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (OCISO) into the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) was “alarming.”
“This is a significant shift in the proprieties of senior leadership where business operations and quality of service take precedence over securing the President’s network,” the memo reads. “As a career cyber security professional, this is alarming.”
The memo also comes after at least a dozen officials have either resigned from or been pushed out of an Obama-era cybersecurity mission, which was established in 2014 after Russia hacked into some White House computers. The mission aimed to shield the White House from similar foreign threats, Axios reported.
“Measuring the success of your security staff by the frequency major compromises are identified versus the duration of time since the last compromise is absurd,” Vastakis wrote. “Allowing for a large portion of institutional knowledge to concurrently walk right out the front door seems contrary to the best interests of the mission and the organization as a whole.”
He added, “They say that history repeats itself. Unfortunately, given all of the changes I’ve seen in the past three months, I foresee the White House is posturing itself to be electronically compromised once again.”
The Hill
Didn't she know who she worked for?In the months before Kirstjen Nielsen was forced to resign [as director of the Department of Homeland Security], she tried to focus the White House on one of her highest priorities as homeland security secretary: preparing for new and different Russian forms of interference in the 2020 election.
President Trump’s chief of staff told her not to bring it up in front of the president.
[...]
Officials said she had become increasingly concerned about Russia’s continued activity in the United States during and after the 2018 midterm elections — ranging from its search for new techniques to divide Americans using social media, to experiments by hackers, to rerouting internet traffic and infiltrating power grids.
NYT
No collusion?But in a meeting this year, Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, made it clear that Mr. Trump still equated any public discussion of malign Russian election activity with questions about the legitimacy of his victory. According to one senior administration official, Mr. Mulvaney said it “wasn’t a great subject and should be kept below his level.”
Even though the Department of Homeland Security has primary responsibility for civilian cyberdefense, Ms. Nielsen eventually gave up on her effort to organize a White House meeting of cabinet secretaries to coordinate a strategy to protect next year’s elections.
Cue Trump tweet: FAKE NEWS!As a result, [...] many Americans remain unaware of the latest versions of Russian interference.
This account of Ms. Nielsen’s frustrations was described to The New York Times by three senior Trump administration officials and one former senior administration official, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. The White House did not provide comment after multiple requests on Tuesday.
“You look at what Russia did — you know, buying some Facebook ads to try to sow dissent and do it — and it’s a terrible thing,” Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said on Tuesday during an interview at the Time 100 Summit in New York.
“But I think the investigations, and all of the speculation that’s happened for the last two years, has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of Facebook ads,” he said.
Her little revenge.Before she resigned under pressure on April 7, Ms. Nielsen and other officials looked for other ways to raise the alarm.
The opening page of the Worldwide Threat Assessment, a public document compiled by government intelligence agencies that was delivered to Congress in late January, warned that “the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections.”
“Russia’s social media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities and criticizing perceived anti-Russia politicians,” the report noted. It also predicted that “Moscow may employ additional influence tool kits — such as spreading disinformation, conducting hack-and-leak operations or manipulating data — in a more targeted fashion to influence U.S. policy, actions and elections.”
[...]
Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, eliminated the position of cybersecurity coordinator at the White House last year, leaving junior aides to deal with the issue. In January, Ms. Nielsen fumed when 45 percent of her cyberdefense work force was furloughed during the government shutdown.
[...]
One senior official described homeland security officials as adamant that the United States government needed to significantly step up its efforts to urge the American public and companies to block foreign influence campaigns. But the department was stymied by the White House’s refusal to discuss it, the official said.
[...]
A second senior administration official said Ms. Nielsen began pushing after the November midterms for the governmentwide efforts to protect the 2020 elections, but only after it became increasingly clear that she had fallen out of Mr. Trump’s favor for not taking a harder line against immigration.
They'll be very afraid and stop immediately after the next warning.On Friday, the day after Mr. Mueller’s conclusions were made public, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration would continue to confront Moscow on its attempts to meddle in the 2020 elections.
“Russia interferes in a number of places,” Mr. Pompeo said. “I don’t think there’s been a discussion between a senior U.S. official and Russians in this administration where we have not raised this issue about our concern about Russia’s interference in our elections.”
“We will make very clear to them this is unacceptable behavior,” he said.
Impeach. Now.Before the midterms, the United States Cyber Command created a so-called Russia Small Group of American officials to disrupt election influence campaigns by two groups whose members were indicted as part of Mr. Mueller’s investigation: the G.R.U., which is Moscow’s military intelligence agency, and the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm with ties to Mr. Putin.
The United States disrupted the Internet Research Agency’s servers around the midterm elections in November, according to officials briefed on the actions. A declassified after-action report on the 2018 countermeasures by the United States government was expected to be released early this year but has never been published.
[...]
[Matthew Masterson, a senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security who coordinates its election cybersecurity,] said the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is working with American states to fortify election systems to prevent Russians and other hackers from penetrating voter registration records. The department is also working with other federal agencies to provide state officials with more information about election interference efforts.
[...]
“Russian intelligence’s 2016 covert actions to divide Americans by interfering in our election were so successful,” said Kevin T. Carroll, a former C.I.A. officer who was a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security during the first two years of the Trump administration.
“Putin will amplify them in 2020,” he said.
So....is that what they're planning on doing to other countries? I still wonder about that three-day period at the end of December when we had 9-11 systems down at the same time in 37 states and electrical explosions in two at the same time.Russian authorities and major internet providers are planning to disconnect the country from the internet as part of a planned experiment, Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) reported last week.
The reason for the experiment is to gather insight and provide feedback and modifications to a proposed law introduced in the Russian Parliament in December 2018.
A first draft of the law mandated that Russian internet providers should ensure the independence of the Russian internet space (Runet) in the case of foreign aggression to disconnect the country from the rest of the internet.
ZDNet
Yes, I think that's definitely going to happen. I believe the government knows that.In addition, Russian telecom firms would also have to install "technical means" to re-route all Russian internet traffic to exchange points approved or managed by Roskomnazor, Russia's telecom watchdog.
Roskomnazor will inspect the traffic to block prohibited content and make sure traffic between Russian users stays inside the country, and is not re-routed uselessly through servers abroad, where it could be intercepted.
A date for the test has not been revealed, but it's supposed to take place before April 1, the deadline for submitting amendments to the law --known as the Digital Economy National Program.
[...]
RBK reported that all internet providers agreed with the law's goals, but disagreed with its technical implementation, which they believe will cause major disruptions to Russian internet traffic.
Is the timing of this connected in any way to Trump's declaration regarding the possibility of shutting down the government or declaring a national emergency this week? Or is that purely coincidental?Ongoing discussions are in regards to finding the proper technical methods to disconnect Russia from the internet with minimal downtime to consumers and government agencies.
[...]
The Russian government has been working on this project for years. In 2017, Russian officials said they plan to route 95 percent of all internet traffic locally by 2020.
[...]
Russia's response comes as NATO countries announced several times that they were mulling a stronger response to cyber attacks, of which Russia is constantly accused of carrying out.
[...]
The end goal is for Russian authorities to implement a web traffic filtering system like China's Great Firewall, but also have a fully working country-wide intranet in case the country needs to disconnect.
Are we crashing due to degrading infrastructure, or are we being crashed via cyber attacks?A suspected malware computer virus from outside the United States prevented the Los Angeles Times from publishing many of its Saturday print editions, in an attack that similarly crippled other newspapers across the country, the Times said.
The newspaper reported in its online edition at 4:55 p.m. that the cyberattack “appears to have originated from outside the United States.”
[...]
The San Diego Union-Tribune was unable to make Saturday delivery of its print addition, and the Southern California editions of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were affected as well.
[...]
In an update Saturday afternoon, the paper said that all publications within The Times’ former parent company, Tribune Publishing, had problems with print production Saturday. Tribune Publishing sold The Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune to Los Angeles biotech billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong in June, but the companies continue to share various systems, including software.
The LA Times said that readers could access the Saturday edition online via the digital edition.
CBS
May 15, 2018
The White House eliminated the position of cybersecurity coordinator on the National Security Council on Tuesday, doing away with a post central to developing policy to defend against increasingly sophisticated digital attacks and the use of offensive cyber weapons.
A memorandum circulated by an aide to the new national security adviser, John R. Bolton, said the post was no longer considered necessary because lower-level officials had already made cybersecurity issues a “core function” of the president’s national security team.
Cybersecurity experts and members of Congress said they were mystified by the move, though some suggested Mr. Bolton did not want any competitive power centers emerging inside the national security apparatus.
[...]
Trump began his administration with two respected veterans of cyber policy. He appointed Thomas P. Bossert, a lawyer in the administration of President George W. Bush, as the homeland security adviser.
The cybersecurity coordinator who reported to him, Rob Joyce, had run the Tailored Access Operations unit of the N.S.A. — the unit that, until it was reorganized and renamed, was responsible for breaking into foreign computer systems as part of United States covert operations.
Mr. Bossert and Mr. Joyce said Russia and North Korea were the culprits in major cyberattacks over the last year.
[...]
Mr. Bossert was forced out on Mr. Bolton’s second day on the job, and Mr. Joyce returned to the N.S.A. on Friday.
[...]
The elimination of the cybersecurity role is likely to increase concern that the Trump administration is short-handed and unprepared to deal with increasing cybersecurity threats.
[...]
Security experts are also worried that hackers operating out of Iran or Russia could renew their efforts to penetrate computer systems in the United States, including machines that operate critical infrastructure like the electric power grid.
[...]
Joshua Steinman, who had little cybersecurity policy experience before joining the N.S.C., will assume responsibility for offensive policy, including responses to cyberthreats from foreign adversaries. The defensive and homeland security responsibilities will fall to Grant Schneider, who already serves in a dual role as acting United States chief information security officer and senior director for cybersecurity at the N.S.C.
NYT
All this without a cybersecurity coordinator.President Donald J. Trump is committed to protecting the cybersecurity of our Nation, and has made it clear that this Administration will do what it takes to make America cyber secure.
Since the beginning of President Trump’s Administration, he has taken action to protect the American people in cyber space. Building on these strong efforts, today, the President signed the National Cyber Strategy—the first fully articulated cyber strategy for the United States since 2003.
The National Cyber Strategy identifies decisive priority actions to protect the American people.
[...]
This Administration will not treat cyberspace as a separate arena. Instead, we are integrating cyber into all elements of national power.
[...]
We will manage cybersecurity risks to increase the security and resilience of the Nation’s information and information systems. We will do this by taking specific steps to secure Federal networks and information, secure critical infrastructure, combat cybercrime, and improve incident reporting.
[...]
We will preserve America’s influence in the technological ecosystem and pursue development of cyberspace as an open engine of economic growth, innovation, and efficiency. To do this, we will support a vibrant and resilient digital economy, foster and protect American ingenuity, and develop a superior cybersecurity workforce.
Whitehoues.gov
It seems pretty obvious we're failing on this one.We will identify, counter, disrupt, degrade, and deter behavior in cyberspace that is destabilizing and contrary to our national interests, while preserving America’s overmatch in and through cyberspace.
Russia, if you're listening.To achieve this, we will do our part to enhance cyber stability through norms of responsible state behavior, attribution of unacceptable behavior in cyberspace, and the imposition of costs on malicious cyber actors.
Better pick up the speed.We have a lot of work to do, and there is no time to waste. We will Make America Cyber Secure.
Riiiiiiiight.[T]he New York Times reported earlier this month that a company called Securus Technologies was offering a service that allowed users to track people’s whereabouts in real time, using data obtained from the wireless companies through a pair of intermediaries. The Times reported that a Missouri sheriff had been using the service to keep tabs on 11 people, including fellow officers and a judge, without their knowledge and without a warrant. He’s now facing state and federal charges.
That’s just the beginning. Motherboard reported last week that Securus had been hacked, with the credentials of 2,800 authorized users stolen, most or all of them presumably working in law enforcement or at prisons. (Securus’ main business involves helping prisons crack down on inmates’ cellphone use.) It’s a safe bet that some of those users had access to the same location-tracking tools that the Missouri sheriff abused.
[...]
The big U.S. wireless carriers—AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile—were all working with LocationSmart, sending their users’ location data to the firm so that it could triangulate their whereabouts more precisely using multiple providers’ cell towers. It seems no one can opt out of this form of tracking, because the carriers rely on it to provide their service.
It gets worse. A Carnegie Mellon researcher poking around on LocationSmart’s website found that he could use a free trial service to instantly pinpoint the location of, well, just about anyone with a mobile phone and wireless service from one of those major carriers. He did this without any permission or credentials, let alone a warrant.
[...]
LocationSmart subsequently shut down the service and told security blogger Brian Krebs that the vulnerability had not been exploited before Robert Xiao, the Carnegie Mellon researcher, did so.
Slate
We're becoming numb to every kind of abuse we're experiencing. Half of it we don't even understand. It's beyond obvious that if not for whistleblowers and the ACLU, we'd already be slaves to a fascist autocracy. Almost there anyway.[T]he wireless companies are still doing it, and as of Monday, Ars Technica has reported that not one had expressly pledged to stop working with LocationSmart.
Sen. Ron Wyden, the tech-savvy Oregon Democrat, has reacted furiously, sending a May 8 letter to the FCC demanding an investigation of Securus and letters to the wireless carriers calling on them to secure users’ location data.
[...]
The threats to Americans’ security are grave—a hacker could have used this site to know when you were in your house so they would know when to rob it. A predator could have tracked your child’s cell phone to know when they were alone. The dangers from LocationSmart and other companies are limitless. If the FCC refuses to act after this revelation then future crimes against Americans will be [on] the commissioners’ heads.[...]
The FCC told Ars Technica on Friday afternoon that it’s taking preliminary steps to look into the matter. That’s all the action we’ve seen so far from the government.
The reaction from the mainstream media and the public has been as muted as the reaction to Cambridge Analytica was explosive. Even tech sites have devoted relatively little coverage to the story.
[...]
Privacy abuses and slip-ups by major tech companies have become so numerous, and the prospect of containing them seems so hopeless, that the public and much of the media have become nearly numb to them.
On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictment of nine Iranians for conspiring to hack and defraud American universities and businesses on behalf of the Iranian government. Rosenstein vowed harsh repercussions for the Iranian hackers, including their extradition to the United States and imprisonment if convicted. The strongly worded presser stood in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s approach to hacks by Russia, a far more pervasive threat to the United States. Since 2014, Russia has hacked the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Democratic National Committee, the Republican National Committee, the personal emails of millions of Americans, and most notably, critical infrastructure including the power grid.
[...]
While the contrast between the Trump administration’s treatment of Iranian and Russian hackers is alarming in its own right, the most troubling aspect of the announcement may be the timing. Less than 24 hours before the indictments were revealed, Trump appointed notorious warmonger John Bolton as his new national security advisor, effective April 9. Bolton has been seeking to invade Iran for at least 15 years.
[...]
Bolton has insisted, without evidence and in defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s assessment, that Iran is not honoring its commitment to constrain its nuclear program, and that military invasion is necessary. He has repeatedly insisted that the U.S. should abandon the Iran deal completely, appearing on FOX News–Trump’s main repository of policy advice–to argue that Trump should “just get out of it.”
[...]
In the fall of 2017, as tensions between the U.S. and North Korea ran sky-high, Bolton repeatedly called for a pre-emptive strike, one that would likely lead to nuclear war. Bolton differs here from Trump only in his experience and bureaucratic prowess: Trump has fantasized about using nuclear weapons for over 30 years – “If we have them, why not use them?” he famously said–and has proposed massive spending on a new nuclear arsenal. [...] In January, the Pentagon announced in its updated nuclear posture review that nuclear strikes were a legitimate response to nonmilitary attacks if they involved “extreme circumstances”, citing a major cyberattack as an example.
[...]
If the Iranian hacks–which, according to Rosenstein, caused $3.4 billion in damage–are considered “extreme circumstances” by the White House, nuclear strikes may be on the table.
Sarah Kendzior
For Bolton, the answer to any international crisis is always war, and the indicted Iranian hackers, presented with much fanfare by Rosenstein, give the administration an ostensible pretext. Needless to say, an administration that runs on “alternative facts” will simply invent an excuse where none exists, but the timing of the announcement seems geared to direct the nation’s attention to Iran as a major threat, laying the groundwork for Bolton to pursue military and even nuclear strikes–now justified in official documents by the changes in the Pentagon’s nuclear posture review–when he begins his tenure in April.
[...]
Bolton will enter a White House with a gutted State Department, multiple officials under investigation for illicit Kremlin ties (which Bolton also shares) and illicit work with Cambridge Analytica (with whom Bolton also worked), and a support team of religious zealots, Islamophobes, kleptocrats, and mercenaries, all of whom would likely find a rearrangement of the Middle East power structure advantageous. It is an administration that has long abandoned accountability, violating both White House protocol and the constitution with impunity, and firing officials—like James Comey and Andrew McCabe—who attempt to investigate the corruption.
And, of course, there was a huge scandal, and the 2016 election went tits up. I, along with other smarter folk, were not convinced by the reports at the time, because there was so much ambiguous information coming out in panicked tones. None of them indicated that the Dutch had been surveilling these Russian groups for two years already. One of the problems with having any trust in our intelligence and government pronouncements is the secrecy that they are either prevented from revealing because of actual national security (ours or allies) and their propensity to be secretive for the sake of being secretive.In the summer of 2014, the Joint Sigint Cyber Unit (JSCU) was launched, a joint unit of AIVD and MIVD, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service. Based in the Dutch city of Zoetermeer, it focuses on, among other things, obtaining intelligence through cyber operations. That same summer, the unit received a tip about a group of Russian hackers based at a university complex in Moscow. An AIVD hacking team, operating under the JSCU flag, subsequently succeeded in penetrating the internal Russian computer network. Not only did the AIVD gain access the computer network, it also hacked the security camera in the corridor.
[...]
This allowed them to see exactly who entered the hacking room. Information about these individuals was shared with the US intelligence services. Dutch intelligence services consider Cozy Bear an extension of the SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service, which is firmly controlled by President Putin.
[...]
After a few months, in November 2014, the Dutch watched as the Russian hackers penetrated the computer network of the State Department. After being alerted to this by the Dutch intelligence chiefs, it took the Americans over 24 hours to avert the Russian attack, after a digital clash.
[...]
In the autumn of 2014, the Russians also gained access to the non-classified computer network of the White House. This allowed them to see confidential memos and non-public information about the itinerary of President Obama, and to at least part of President Obama's email correspondence. These hacks, too, were exposed by the Dutch intelligence services, which subsequently notified the Americans.
[...]
In April 2016, Fancy Bear accessed the Washington servers of the Democrats; Cozy Bear had done so as early as the summer of 2015. Once more, the group was caught red-handed by the Dutch, who again alerted their U.S. counterparts.
It is not clear why the hacks at the DNC could continue for so long despite the Dutch warnings.Last year, The New York Times reported that for months, the DNC had not taken the FBI warnings seriously. Eventually, cybersecurity company Crowdstrike, which was investigating the matter on behalf of the Democratic Party, also concluded that Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear were jointly responsible for the hacks.
NOS
Nice going, guys.Last Sunday on Dutch television programme College Tour, Rob Bertholee, head of AIVD, said that he had no doubt that the Kremlin was directly responsible for the Russian cyber campaign against U.S. government agencies. Bertholee as well as Pieter Bindt, who was heading MIVD at the time, personally discussed the DNC matter with James Clapper.
[...]
As of now, the AIVD hackers do not seem to have access to Cozy Bear any longer. Sources suggest that the openness of US intelligence sources, who in 2017 praised the help of a Western ally in news stories, may have ruined their operation.
Understandable. He offered the Russian ambassador and the Foreign Minister top secret information that an intel ally had US counterparts about an IS threat, and told him where, in effect revealing which ally it was. And he leaked info about where we had submarines to Duterte. Clueless fool. We haven't heard any stories of this kind of blunder for months. They may have quit giving him intel reports. If they're smart, they did.In the television programme College Tour, this month, AIVD director Bertholee stated that he is extra careful when it comes to sharing intelligence with the U.S., now that Donald Trump is President.
