Russian authorities and major telecom operators are preparing to disconnect the country from the world wide web as part of an exercise to prepare for future cyber attacks, Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) reported last week.
The purpose of the exercise is to develop a threat analysis and provide feedback to a proposed law introduced in the Russian Parliament last December. Continue reading
Not only is espionage in the form of technology theft a serious issue, but the Chinese have also been manufacturing microchips Americans use [i.e. Huewei smartphones — founded by a PLA engineer on behest of the CCP (See also HERE)]… and it’s not limited to the average American consumer, but the U.S. military as well.
U.S. President Barack Obama walks past Chinese President Xi Jinping / AP
Incident involving jet fighter logistics highlights aggressive Chinese cyber espionage
A U.S. defense contractor was threatened with bankruptcy by Chinese hackers seeking jet fighter logistics secrets, according to the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.
A report earlier this month by the Joint Staff’s J-2 intelligence directorate revealed that the American contractor, a company involved in classified defense work, was threatened by Chinese hackers, according to Pentagon officials familiar with the report.
The Chinese demanded access to the company’s intellectual property, and said unless the company secrets were provided, China would steal the data, reverse engineer it, and then sell it internationally in a bid to force the company into bankruptcy. Continue reading
US intelligence agencies have determined that China stole secrets relating to the F-35 jet fighter from a US contractor. Photo: Reuters
According to the annual report of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Chinese cyber espionage is a “major problem” for America
China has gained military benefits in recent years from stealing defense secrets through industrial and cyber espionage carried out by its intelligence services, according to a US congressional report.
“In recent years, Chinese agents have extracted data on some of the most advanced weapons and weapons systems in the US arsenal, such as jet fighters and unmanned submersible vehicles,” states the annual report of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, released on November 16.
“The loss of these and other sensitive defense technologies undermines US military superiority by accelerating China’s military modernization and giving China insight into the capabilities and operation of US weapons and weapons systems,” the report adds. Continue reading
Le Monde and The Intercept report that British and American intelligence agencies have been monitoring cell phone use on commercial flights since 2005. Continue reading
‘We have to get the budget out there to stay ahead of this because otherwise it’s gonna have a major impact’
The Israeli military made (air)waves last week when it announced that it was installing cyber defenses on its F-35 jets. While this may seem like a futuristic concept, it’s actually long overdue from an online security standpoint.
“Bad actors were already doing bad things on the internet before the military caught up with technology,” Richard Blech, founder and CEO of the cybersecurity firm Secure Channels, told the Observer. Continue reading
AP / RICK BOWMER
The Pentagon’s top testing official has weighed and measured the F-35 and found it wanting.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the most expensive military program in the world, is even more broken than previously thought. The jet can’t tell old parts from new ones, randomly prevents user logins, and trying to eject out of it will likely result in serious neck injury and maybe death. A Pentagon office is warning that the plane is being rushed into service. Continue reading
According to IRS data published in the Federal Register on Monday, 1,426 Americans expatriated in the third quarter of 2015, bringing this year’s total to 3,221 so far. The figure is 25 percent higher than the same period last year, when 2,585 renounced their citizenship. Continue reading
On Tuesday, The Tax Policy Center, a joint effort by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, said the number of households that don’t pay federal income taxes fell to 45.3 percent. But that figure is still roughly 5 percentage points higher than the center’s 2013 estimate of 40.4 percent. Continue reading
The European Union no longer considers the United States a “safe harbor” for data because the National Security Agency surveillance exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden “enables interference, by United States public authorities, with the fundamental rights of persons.”
The EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice, declared on Tuesday that an international commercial data-sharing agreement allowing U.S. companies free-flowing access to large amounts of European citizens’ data was no longer valid.
In the past, the U.S. government has sent information about foreigners’ US financial-accounts to government authorities abroad, and has received such information about U.S. taxpayers’ overseas accounts.
However, the Wall Street Journal reports that the agency’s new initiative makes the sharing automatic and its scope much larger. Continue reading
The Office of Personnel Management announced Wednesday that 5.6 million people are now estimated to have had their fingerprint information stolen.
That number was originally thought to be about 1.1 million, OPM said in a statement. About 21.5 million individuals had their Social Security Numbers and other sensitive information affected by the hack.
The “patch and pray” system within the United States has killed cyber security. Nobody is willing to commit any funds to protecting the system until something has already happened. Unless this way of thinking is changed and experts begin to go on the offense with cyber defense, America’s IT infrastructure is as good as dead.
Another week, another wave of cyber alarm in America. On Wednesday both the New York Stock Exchange and United Airlines suspended activity for several hours due to mysterious computing problems, while the Wall Street Journal’s website briefly went down. All three insisted that the outages reflected technical hitches, not malicious attack. But many are anxious after past assaults on mighty American companies and agencies.
In February Anthem, an insurance company, revealed that cyber hackers had stolen information on 80m customers. The Washington-based Office of Personnel Management said cyber hackers had taken data on millions of federal employees. Companies ranging from retailers to banks have been attacked, too. Continue reading
German-owned Patriot missiles stationed in Turkey were briefly taken over by hackers, according to media reports on Tuesday.
The attack took place on anti-aircraft ‘Patriot’ missiles on the Syrian border. The American-made weapons had been stationed there by the Bundeswehr (German army) to protect Nato ally Turkey.
According to the civil service magazine, the missile system carried out “unexplained” orders. It was not immediately clear when these orders were carried out and what they were. Continue reading
Yes, world, Google and Facebook are as powerful data collectors as the United States’ foremost spy agency, and what’s more, their data collection is legal because, unwittingly or not, users of both give them permission to do so (was there really ever a time Google lived up to its motto of “Don’t be evil”?).As reported by National Journal, both sites – and other social media destinations – continue to vacuum up data nearly as fast as it is created, and all in the name of selling you that next widget or product or service:
The private-sector tech companies that run the social networks and email services Americans use every day are relatively opaque when it comes to their data-collection and retention policies, which are engineered not to preserve national security but to bolster the companies’ bottom lines. Continue reading
Global Geopolitics 