Tag Archive for: america

Russian Intelligence Agencies Relying on ‘Bruce Force’ to Hack America

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Recently, the U.S. and British intelligence communities issued an advisory uncovering the “Brute Force” cyber techniques used by the Russian GRU intelligence agency against hundreds of Western government and private targets. These revelations come in the wake of months of successive cyberattacks against American and European targets, including the SolarWinds, which saw Russian and Chinese hackers gain access to U.S. government systems, and Colonial Pipeline, which interfered with the flow of fuel on America’s East Coast this past May.

According to the Intelligence Community, the GRU cyberattacks started from the middle of 2019 and are likely still ongoing, with the GRU’s 85th Main Special Service Center (GTsSS) unit 26165 identified as the main perpetrator behind the attacks. The goal of this cyber warfare campaign is to access protected and classified databases in order to purloin information, but also to pave the way for future breaches.  

The advisory is a joint product of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the U.K.’s signals intelligence agency. 

Related: America needs new covert options for Great Power Competition

KGB Reloaded: Russian Intelligence

The Russian intelligence apparatus is composed of four main agencies.

The SVR (Sluzhba vneshney razvedki Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the external intelligence agency that focuses on foreign intelligence collection and is often compared to America’s CIA. While not entirely accurate, the comparison is somewhat apt.

The FSB (Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the internal security and counterintelligence service that focuses on domestic intelligence, and is roughly the equivalent of America’s FBI.

The GRU (Glavnoje Razvedyvatel’noje Upravlenije) is the military foreign intelligence service that commands the Spetsnaz special operations units and a very rough equivalent of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

Finally, the FSO (Federalnaya sluzhba okhrany) protects the Russian president but also…

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SOS-2-US – Mobile Security App

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Chinese Hackers Attacked Afghan Council Network, Cybersecurity Firm Says  | Voice of America

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As part of a cyberespionage operation targeting Central Asian countries, Chinese hackers recently sought to breach the computer networks of Afghanistan’s National Security Council, researchers at cybersecurity firm Check Point reported.

The alleged attack by the Chinese-speaking hacking group known to cybersecurity experts as IndigoZebra is the latest in an operation that goes back as far as 2014 and has targeted political entities in neighboring Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the researchers wrote in a report released Thursday. Other countries might also have been targeted, the researchers said.

The Afghan operation came in early April, when hackers impersonated a senior official in the office of the president of Afghanistan to infiltrate the country’s National Security Council. They did this after gaining access to the official’s email account and using it to send national security officials a “dupe email” urging action about an upcoming press conference.

“Yesterday, I called your office and no one answered it,” the hackers posing as the official wrote in the email. “We have received your file and modified it. There is an error in the third line of the second page. Please confirm whether the error exists.”

Effects unknown

Acting on the email would have activated malware, and it remains unclear if anyone on the council fell victim to the attack. A spokesman for the council told VOA he was not aware of the attempted breach.

Lotem Finkelstein, head of threat intelligence at Check Point Software Technologies in Tel Aviv, Israel, said it was highly unusual for hackers to use “ministry-to-ministry” deception, as was the case in Afghanistan, to carry out a cyberattack.

“This tactic is vicious and effective in making anyone do anything for you; and in this case, the malicious activity was seen at the highest levels of sovereignty,” Finkelstein said.

FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2019, file photo an iPhone displays a Facebook page in New Orleans. Facebook says hackers in China…
FILE – An iPhone displays a Facebook page, Aug. 11, 2019. Facebook said March 24, 2021, that hackers in China had used fake accounts and impostor websites in a bid to break into the phones of Uyghur Muslims.

This is the first major Chinese cyberespionage operation in Afghanistan to come to…

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5G isn’t just about fast internet. It can help keep America safe.

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Most Americans associate 5G technology with self-driving cars, virtual reality headsets, or super-fast internet. While all of these applications are exciting, they aren’t as critical to America as the national security implications of 5G. Winning the race to 5G will help ensure that our military communications are secure and that bad actors can’t hack or manipulate these communications.

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The Chinese Communist Party understands very well the importance of 5G and is working hard to develop 5G technology before us to gain control of the market. A recent report by the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy bluntly summarizes the threat the CCP poses.

“Given the size of China’s economy, the demonstrable extent of its market-distorting policies, and China’s stated intent to dominate the industries of the future, China’s acts, policies, and practices of economic aggression now targeting the technologies and IP of the world threaten not only the U.S. economy but also the global innovation system as a whole.”

America must swiftly act to ensure we win the race to 5G. One of the biggest barriers to American development of 5G is antitrust law and enforcement, both domestically and internationally. A combination of domestic rulings and efforts by foreign governments have left many of our most innovative companies dangerously exposed. We need to respond to these anti-competitive measures to ensure American companies are competing on a level playing field.

Aggressive antitrust enforcement by both foreign and domestic forces threatens innovation by forcing American companies to engage in expensive litigation.  The lawsuits often result in these companies being unable to exercise their legally granted intellectual property rights. Qualcomm — one of the most active companies in the 5G space — is embroiled in a years-long legal battle that jeopardizes its business model and could force it to sell its groundbreaking wireless chips at a steep discount. The problems American technology companies face overseas are even more extensive, as foreign governments like China prioritize technological…

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