Book: Dark Wire - "Secure Cell Phone" courtesy FBI

The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever...

...in which the FBI made its own tech start-up to wiretap the world, shows how cunning both the authorities and drug traffickers have become, with privacy implications for everyone.

In 2018, a powerful app for secure communications called Anom took root among organized criminals. They believed Anom allowed them to conduct business in the shadows. Except for one thing: it was secretly run by the FBI. (Tip of the hat to N.C.)

Backdoor access to Anom and a series of related investigations granted American, Australian, and European authorities a front-row seat to the underworld. Tens of thousands of criminals worldwide appeared in full view of the same agents they were trying to evade. International smugglers. Money launderers. Hitmen. A sprawling global economy as efficient and interconnected as the legal one. Officers watched drug shipments and murder plots unfold, making arrests without blowing their cover. more

CISA & FBI Release Chinese Drone Awareness Paper

Cybersecurity Guidance: Chinese-Manufactured UAS is a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) resource that raises awareness on the threats posed by Chinese-manufactured UAS and provides UAS cybersecurity recommendations that reduce risks to networks and sensitive information. This guidance also provides additional resources to augment an organization’s preparedness, response, and resilience.

"The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has enacted laws that provide the government with expanded legal grounds for accessing and controlling data held by firms in China. The use of Chinese-manufactured UAS in critical infrastructure operations risks exposing sensitive information to PRC authorities."  more  / download

Former NSA Employee Arrested on Espionage-Related Charges

CO - A Colorado Springs man will make his initial appearance in federal court today on charges that he attempted to transmit classified National Defense Information (NDI) to a representative of a foreign government.

Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 30, was an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) where he served as an Information Systems Security Designer from June 6, 2022, to July 1, 2022. 

According to the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint, between August and September 2022, Dalke used an encrypted email account to transmit excerpts of three classified documents he had obtained during his employment to an individual Dalke believed to be working for a foreign government. In actuality, that person was an undercover FBI agent. 

Dalke subsequently arranged to transfer additional classified information in his possession to the undercover FBI agent at a location in Denver, Colorado. The FBI arrested Dalke on Sept. 28, after Dalke arrived at the specified location. more

U.S. Government Gets More Aggressive to Curb Espionage at Universities

The U.S. Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) thinks the FBI and other agencies are not doing enough to address the espionage threat on U.S. university campuses. 

It issued a report, “Enforcement Agencies Should Better Leverage Information to Target Efforts Involving U.S. Universities” on June 14, 2022, urging the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Commerce to step up their outreach efforts to address the threat. 

Commerce, DHS, and FBI have all concurred with GAO’s recommendations. As a result, U.S. colleges and universities to face yet another organizational risk: an increase in campuses visits by export control and law enforcement agents. more

Man Sentenced to Prison for Federal Wiretapping Charge

WV - A former Logan County resident was sentenced today to two years and three months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for prohibited interception of oral communications. Randall Dwight Holden II, 33, was also ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Holden admitted to secretly recording a video of a woman engaged in sexually explicit conduct in her Logan County home on November 25, 2017. The video was later uploaded to the internet without the victim’s knowledge. The video was one of several secretly recorded videos that Holden had created and posted online depicting the victim. 

United States Attorney Will Thompson made the announcement and commended the investigative work of the West Virginia State Police-Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). more

FBI Trolls Russian Embassy with Geotargeted Ads for Disgruntled Spies

The FBI’s latest counterintelligence operation against Russia is hardly secretive—you just have to be standing in the right place.

In the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the FBI stepped up its recruiting efforts in the US, hoping to attract Russians who are dissatisfied or disillusioned with the war. People standing in close proximity to the Russian embassy in Washington, DC, can see the ads, which appear in Russian, on Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

One ad appeared in a Washington Post reporter’s Facebook feed when he was standing on the sidewalk next to the embassy’s walls on Wisconsin Avenue NW, but none appeared in his feed when he crossed the street.

“It’s a brilliant recruiting strategy because I think there’s probably a lot of folks within the Russian government that are incredibly dissatisfied with Putin’s war, and therefore it’s a great opportunity to see if any of those dissatisfied people could help us understand Putin’s intentions better,” Peter Lapp, a former FBI counterintelligence agent, told the Post. more

Industrial Espionage Movie: A 30 Minute Wake-Up Call

The FBI's Office of Private Sector, Counterintelligence Division and Training Division present this 30-minute film entitled Made in Beijing: The Plan for Global Market Domination. In the world of global adversaries, the People’s Republic of China stands at the forefront with its sustained and brazen campaign of industrial espionage, posing the single greatest threat to our freedom, national security, and economic vitality.  Made in Beijing: The Plan for Global Market Domination sounds the alarm, helping private sector partners recognize the urgent need to protect their crown jewels against industrial espionage. more

History: Beverly Hills Spy

How a WWII-Era James Bond Betrayed the Allies

To his glamorous friends in Hollywood, Frederick Rutland was a dashing British war hero and a fixture of L.A. high society. To his Japanese handlers, he was Agent Shinkawa, an asset who provided critical intelligence in the lead-up to Pearl Harbor...

Rutland wasn’t the cloak-and-dagger type — he was one of the best known, and most well-liked, figures in L.A. society circles. “Squared jaw; well poised; highly intelligent; good personality; modest; gives appearance of affluence and breeding,” read the 300-page FBI dossier on Rutland, which was only recently declassified. more

The "Encrypted" Cell Phones Had One Flaw: The FBI Controlled Them

The criminals texted each other about drug deals and money laundering, confident in special encrypted devices using a platform dubbed Anom. There was just one problem for the crime rings: The FBI was being copied on every message — millions of them worldwide. In fact, the agency had sent the Anom devices into the black market in the first place.

Those are the details and allegations that are now emerging about Operation Trojan Shield, an international effort coordinated by the FBI that has resulted in more than 800 arrests.

With the help of Europol, the FBI identified "over 300 distinct TCOs [transnational criminal organizations] using Anom, including Italian organized crime, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, and various international narcotics source, transportation, and distribution cells," according to a search warrant affidavit filed in court by Nicholas Cheviron*, an FBI special agent in San Diego. The document was unsealed Monday.

In addition to heading the investigation, FBI Special Agent, Nic Cheviron (son of the best corporate security director ever), wrote the search warrant. It is a fascinating read.

How the Cincinnati FBI Cracked the Chinese Spy Case at GE Aviation

The GE Aviation engineer was deeply involved in the design and analysis of new commercial jet engines, a technology at the top of the shopping lists of Chinese intelligence operatives.

It took the spies only a few months to get him to accept their offer: A $3,500 fee paid in U.S. currency, and free travel, lodging and meals for a one-hour presentation in China. more

GE Aviation takes their information security seriously. Applause. Most companies aren't doing all they can. Too few employ Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) / counterespionage consultants, for example. The result... They don't know what they are missing, in more ways than one.

Oil & Gas Industry Corporate Espionage, or Those Fracking Spies

According to the FBI, corporate espionage in the global oil and gas industry mostly involves stealing intellectual property, including a company's trade secrets, research, and proprietary information...

The main culprits are domestic and/or foreign commercial rivals, start-up companies, foreign Intelligence officers (spies), disgruntled employees (insider threat), or organized criminals.

In the case of Texas fracking companies, employees of drilling firms were targeted when they traveled outside the United States with the contents of their company laptops stolen.

Alternatively, individuals were actively placed inside target companies, or disgruntled employees would simply go rogue and begin collecting and selling trade secrets, mainly as an act of defiance to strike back at their employers. more

Security Management: Which Type of Employee Do You Inspire

Engineer admits he wiped 456 Cisco WebEx VMs after leaving the biz, derailed 16,000 Teams accounts.  

Sudhish Kasaba Ramesh, who worked at Cisco from July 2016 to April 2018, admitted in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he had deliberately connected to Cisco's AWS-hosted systems without authorization in September 2018 – five months after leaving the manufacturer. 

He then proceeded to delete virtual machines powering Cisco's WebEx video-conferencing service... According to prosecutors, Ramesh's actions resulted in the shutdown of more than 16,000 WebEx Teams accounts for up to two weeks, which cost Cisco roughly $1.4m in employee time for remediation and over $1m in customer refunds. more

OR...

Earlier this week, the FBI arrested a 27-year-old Russian citizen for attempting to carry out a ransomware attack against a US company. It turns out that company was Tesla.

According to a complaint shared by the Department of Justice, in July, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov traveled to the US and contacted a Russian speaking, non-US citizen who was working at the Tesla Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. 

After meeting with that individual, Kriuchkov allegedly proposed a deal. He would pay the employee $1 million to deliver malware to computer systems at the Gigafactory...

The employee immediately informed Tesla, and the company contacted the FBI, which launched a sting operation. Agents arrested Kriuchkov in Los Angeles as he was attempting to leave the US. more

Loyal employees can be worth more than you think. Treat them fairly. Make them feel a part of the security effort, and you will have a security army working for you. ~Kevin

Corporate Espionage in the News

RedCurl is its name.
Corporate espionage is its game.

Security researchers today published findings on a new APT group they claim has been stealing data from organizations around the world as far back as 2018. Since then, RedCurl has targeted at least 14 private companies in 26 attacks designed to steal documents containing commercial secrets and employees' personal information.

Its targets span a range of industries and locations. The group has targeted organizations in construction, finance, consulting, retail, banking, insurance, law, and travel...

There is no indication who might have hired RedCurl, where they might be based, or who is behind these attacks, he adds. The group is fairly new, and researchers hope to learn more over time.

"Corporate espionage is not something that we're used to on the cyberscene," Mirkasymov says. Researchers believe the frequency of these attacks indicates it's likely to become more widespread in the future. more

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Three corporate espionage reasons why VW was not a good career choice...

March 14th - Former VW employee says he was fired after questioning deletion of documents. more

June 16th - Former VW employee sought by U.S. arrested in Croatia... more 

August 14th - Former VW employee under investigation for corporate espionage found dead in burned-out car...was investigated by the police on suspicion of violating business secrets. more

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The U.S. National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation today issued a joint cybersecurity advisory warning on a previously undisclosed form of Russian malware...although the objectives of Drovorub were not detailed in the report, they could range from industrial espionage to election interference. more

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Once again, LinkedIn is the battleground for nation state espionage operations. Every counterintelligence and insider threat professional should be paying attention...The goal of the social engineer is to entice the target to at least take a gander at the job offering being discussed and click the attachment which is provided. This attachment carries the payload of malware designed to compromise the device and network of the target. Once the device is compromised and the group has access to the content, their espionage goals are achieved. more

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...and Corporate Espionage can also be entertaining...

How 'American Ronin' Explores Superhumans and Corporate Espionage
As the conflict between global corporations heats up, one man decides to strike back against the unseen forces that quietly rule the modern world, using an entirely unanticipated weapon — his own mind. That’s the idea at the center of American Ronin...The series is the first collaboration between writer Peter Milligan (Shade the Changing Man, Hellblazer, X-Force) and artist ACO (Midnighter, Nick Fury), with the two playing off each other’s strengths to create a story that’s part-corporate espionage, part-superhuman thriller and unlike anything else on the stands at the moment. more

Agribusiness Espionage: The Scientist and the Spy

Deputy Cass Bollman was about to enjoy a coffee break at a gas station in Iowa when the alert came across his radio: “Asian male wearing a suit walking through a farm field. … Nature of incident: suspicious.”

Bollman raced to the scene, a little northeast of Des Moines, where he talked to a farmer who had spotted the odd figure in the field. A few minutes later, Bollman had pulled over an SUV driven by Robert Mo, a Chinese national.

So begins one of the most unexpected stories of espionage ever told—in this case, by Minnesota journalist Mara Hvistendahl in her new book, “The Scientist and the Spy.”

Zeroing in on Zoom’s Threat to Financial Services

COVID-19 has induced a significant shift in the way we work. Remote is the new reality.

There may be, however, a tremendous cost to Zoom’s convenience... For many, Zoom has been the answer to staying connected in the workplace.

Simply put, the widespread adoption of Zoom amid a global pandemic might be the security vulnerability of the decade. 

In fact, any financial services organization using the service should immediately assume their user credentials are under malicious parties’ control.

In recent weeks, New York Attorney General Letitia James has probed Zoom’s data security strategy, and whether the company’s security protections can keep up with the spike in users. It is also our understanding the FBI, among other federal government agencies, has also prohibited the use of Zoom and WebEx due to security concerns. more
Suit Claims Facebook, LinkedIn Eavesdropped on Zoom Calls
More Zoom news.

FBI: Harvard Doc Can't Have Rice Cake and Eat it Too

Federal law enforcement officials arrested a top Harvard scientist on Tuesday for allegedly lying to the U.S. government about his involvement in a massive Chinese program that authorities say is responsible for stealing proprietary information from U.S. institutions.

Authorities arrested Dr. Charles Lieber, 60, chair of the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University...

"...received more than $15,000,000 in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DOD),” The Department of Justice said in a statement. “These grants require the disclosure of significant foreign financial conflicts of interest, including financial support from foreign governments or foreign entities.”

“Unbeknownst to Harvard University beginning in 2011, Lieber became a ‘Strategic Scientist’ at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China and was a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan from in or about 2012 to 2017.” more

The original traveling professor.

U.S. Tour Guide Accused as Spy for China's Security Service

Watch Surveillance Video of Alleged Spy’s ‘Dead Drop’ at Hotel 

The U.S. arrested a California man accused of spying for China’s security service while working as a tour guide in the San Francisco area. U.S. agents secretly monitored drop-offs of packages at a hotel in Newark, California, that were traced to Peng, according to the complaint.

China’s Ministry of State Security schemed “to use an American citizen to remove classified security information to the PRC,” U.S. Attorney David Anderson said at a press conference.

Peng’s activities for the company where he worked, U.S. Tour and Travel, “went far beyond innocent sight-seeing,” Anderson said. more

High Profile Executives — A Company’s Most Vulnerable Target

High-profile people—executives, the board of directors, and other leaders—are privy to sensitive information that cybercriminals lust after which makes them primary targets... 

FBI statistics show that defrauding CEOs is a “$12 billion scam.” When private information about these high-net-worth individuals gets exposed, it carries a high degree of risk for that individual and their business alike. It might even include threats against the executive’s own physical security or that of their family...

When information is readily available about a wealthy person, bad actors have more leverage to compromise them. Consider that Facebook’s board of directors recently granted Mark Zuckerberg a $10 million yearly allowance to security. That money goes to personnel, equipment, and services needed to keep him and his family safe by maintaining vigilance across both physical and digital realms. more

Ag Tech Being Targeted by International Espionage

In a special report, HAT (Hoosier Ag Today) focuses on how ag biotech has become a top priority for foreign spies. It sounds like the plot of a James Bond thriller: foreign governments trying to steal top secret military technology to take over the world. But, in reality, it has become agricultural technology that foreign governments want to steal from the U.S. “If you have a competitive advantage in the field of agriculture, there is a high chance that a foreign government would target that technology,” says Craig Moringiello, special agent with the FBI...

However, companies and universities are not the only ones at risk. The FBI is urging farmers to be vigilant as well. “Farmers should be vigilant  in protecting their operations and security measures,” said Moringiello. He warned farmers to be aware when having foreign visitors on their farms. more

Washington, DC and The Running of the Spies

Washington, DC - Waves of civil servants, military and law enforcement officers, business people, students, diplomats and tourists saturate the city.

That is the scene on a typical weekday in the world’s most powerful city — whose business revolves around secret meetings, information and documents. Woven into that orderly bedlam are sophisticated networks of foreign nationals whose sole purpose is to steal secrets.

They are spies.

According to the International Spy Museum in D.C., an educational and historical center of U.S. intelligence documentation and artifacts, there are “more than 10,000 spies in Washington.”

While there may be some quibbling about the actual numbers, the FBI agrees with the premise.

“It’s unprecedented — the threat from our foreign adversaries, specifically China on the economic espionage and the espionage front,” said Brian Dugan, Assistant Special Agent in Charge for Counterintelligence with the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

As this unparalleled wave of international espionage, aided by technology, explodes in D.C., the variety of spies has diversified, as well.

“A spy is nondescript. A spy is going to be someone that’s going to be a student in school, a visiting professor, your neighbor. It could be a colleague or someone that shares the soccer field with you,” Dugan said. more