US says ex-intel official defected to Iran, revealed secrets

This image provided by the FBI shows part of the wanted poster for Monica Elfriede Witt. The former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran despite warnings from the FBI has been charged with revealing classified information to the Tehran government, including the code name and secret mission of a Pentagon program, prosecutors said Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019. (FBI via AP)

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran despite warnings from the FBI has been charged with revealing classified information to the Tehran government, including the code name and secret mission of a Pentagon program, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The Justice Department also accused Monica Elfriede Witt, 39, of betraying former colleagues in the U.S. intelligence community by feeding details about their personal and professional lives to Iran. Four hackers linked to the Iranian government, charged in the same indictment, used that information to target the intelligence workers online, prosecutors said.

CIA informants inside Russia are going silent, say US sources

 

Secret informants inside the Russian government, which the United States has relied on in recent years for tips about Moscow’s strategy and tactics, have gone silent in recent months, according to sources. Over many years, US intelligence agencies have built networks of Russian informants. These consist of officials placed in senior positions inside the Kremlin and other Russian government institutions, who can help shed light on Russia’s political maneuvers. These informants were crucial in enabling the US Intelligence Community to issue warnings of possible Russian meddling in the American presidential elections of November 2016. Since then, US spy agencies have largely relied on these informants to produce detailed assessments of Russian intelligence activities targeting the US, and propose measures against those involved.

Russian Military Spy Software is on Hundreds of Thousands of Home Routers

Russian President Vladimir Putin and presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, left, attend a meeting during the 5th Caspian summit in Aktau, the Caspian Sea port in Kazakhstan, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018. [Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo (Via AP)]

 

In May, the Justice Department told Americans to reboot their routers. But there’s more to do — and NSA says it’s up to device makers and the public.

LAS VEGAS — The Russian military is inside hundreds of thousands of routers owned by Americans and others around the world, a top U.S. cybersecurity official said on Friday. The presence of Russian malware on the routers, first revealed in May, could enable the Kremlin to steal individuals’ data or enlist their devices in a massive attack intended to disrupt global economic activity or target institutions.

On May 27, Justice Department officials asked Americans to reboot their routers to stop the attack. Afterwards, the world largely forgot about it. That’s a mistake, said Rob Joyce, senior advisor to the director of the National Security Agency and the former White House cybersecurity coordinator.

“The Russian malware is still there,” said Joyce.

China, Russia’s Sophisticated Anti-Satellite Capabilities Alarms US

illustration only

 

Russia and China have developed increasingly sophisticated space countermeasure weapons to destroy US satellites, according to a new report.

Evidence “strongly indicates” that “China has sustained a broad effort to develop a broad range of counter-space capabilities,” the US-based Secure World Foundation said in its April 2018 report.

REVEALED: Facebook’s CIA Connections…

 

Has the recent Facebook data scandal got you a little paranoid about sharing information on the internet?

I don’t blame you. After all, Facebook has access to some of your most personal information.

I’m talking about every message you’ve ever sent or been sent, every contact in your phone and even access to your computer’s camera and microphones.

Now would you like to get a lot more paranoid?

OK.

Let me introduce you to a company called In-Q-Tel…

U.S. Warns: Iran Enhancing Espionage, Cyber Attacks on America

President Hassan Rouhani in front of a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei / Getty Images

 

Iran is putting a greater focus on espionage and cyber operations targeting American and U.S. ally networks in a bid to lay the groundwork for devastating hack attacks on sensitive American networks, according to a new warning from the U.S. intelligence community.

CIA Warns of Extensive Chinese Operation to Infiltrate American Institutions

China Marks Confucius’s 2558th Birthday (Getty Images)

 

Intel report: Beijing provides ‘strings-attached funding’ to ‘coerce’ self-censorship

The CIA has issued a classified report detailing China’s far-reaching foreign influence operations campaign in the United States, which imparts financial incentives as leverage to permeate American institutions.

In an unclassified page of the report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, the CIA cautions against efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to stipulate funding to universities and policy institutes in exchange for academic censorship.

US military intelligence staff allege ‘toxic’ work environment, lack of oversight

 

Current and former employees of the United States’ primary military intelligence agency have publicly accused the agency’s senior watchdog of not doing her job and sabotaging the careers of her subordinates. According to Foreign Policy, which interviewed the disgruntled employees, “no one is policing” the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the moment. The DIA is one of the largest institutions in the US Intelligence Community. It collects, analyzes and disseminates foreign military-related intelligence, and has active personnel stationed in over 140 countries. As is the case with every agency in the US Intelligence Community, the DIA’s activities are monitored by an internal office of the Inspector General. The office is tasked with investigating allegations of illegality, mismanagement, fraud, waste and abuse inside the DIA.

Trump administration allegedly considering plan to privatize CIA operations

 

The United States Central Intelligence Agency and the White House are considering several proposals to hire private companies to carry out covert operations abroad, according to a report. BuzzFeed News said on Thursday that the proposals were communicated to the White House in the summer. The news site, which described the proposed plans as “highly unusual”, quoted “three sources who have been briefed on or have direct knowledge of the proposals”. The sources told BuzzFeed that, if approved, the plans would include the establishment of large intelligence networks in so-called “denied areas” —namely foreign environments deemed hostile. The networks would recruit and handle local agents, carry out psychological operations, capture terrorism suspects and rendition them to the US or third countries. “Islamic extremism” is mentioned as the primary target of the proposals.

Jim Rickards: We’re Heading for War with North Korea

Click on the picture for the Bloomberg video interview.

 

Speaking with Bloomberg’s Betty Liu on gold, the geopolitical threat of North Korea and what to expect from the Federal Reserve financial expert Jim Rickards provided what his outlook shows for the months ahead.

The Bloomberg host began by asking Rickards why, with no current inflationary problems seen by most investors, he believed that gold was due for a major boom. The Strategic Intelligence editor started, “The reason in the first half [of the year] about 7.8% against enormous headwinds. The Fed has raised rates in December, March and again in June. [Now] we’re seeing disinflation, a slowing economy, a declining labor force. Everything looks like a recession and yet gold went up almost 8% in that environment. As we go forward, the Fed will always be the last to know.”

North Korea issues SHOCK war warning: ‘If a single bullet is fired, we WILL nuke the US’

Now would be a great time for the U.S. intelligence community (IC) to assess whether or not the two North Korean ‘weather satellites’ hanging over the American mainland aren’t nukes or EMP devices ready to drop on command.

North Korea is somewhat akin to a loudmouth who always makes threats, but is always downplayed and laughed at because people only see the weakling on the surface, yet one day might deliver a crippling blow with a hidden weapon. President Trump has so far shown that he is one to take every threat seriously.

See also: North Korea’s new satellite flew over Super Bowl site

 

KIM JONG-UN: North Korea is talking up open war with the US in the Korean Peninsula [Getty]

 

NORTH Korea has pledged to launch a nuclear strike on the US if a “single bullet is fired” as US forces flood the Korean Peninsula.

Kim Jong-un’s rogue state issued the stunning warning as Washington and South Korea carry out war games in the region.

Pyongyang blames the rest of the world for rising nuclear tensions as the DPRK continues its quest for nuclear missiles capable of striking the US mainland.

Iran said to have developed Shi’ite proxy force in Iraq for deployment elsewhere

The Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces has some 80,000 fighters. /AFP

 

Iran has in place thousands of loyal Shi’ite militiamen in Iraq that could be used as a permanent force in the region, deploying to hot spots in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, analysts say.

There are some 80,000 fighters under Iran’s direction in the Hizbullah Brigades, Badr Organization and other groups that fall under the Iraq-approved umbrella group known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.

The Real Russian Mole Inside NSA

A helicopter view of the National Security Agency January 28, 2016 in Fort Meade, Maryland. (Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The media has finally noticed that the National Security Agency has a problem with Kremlin penetration

Moles—that is, long-term penetration agents—are every intelligence service’s worst nightmare. Though rarer in reality than in spy movies and novels, moles exist and can do enormous damage to a country’s secrets and espionage capabilities. They’re what keep counterintelligence experts awake at night.

The recent appearance on the Internet of top secret hacking tools from the National Security Agency has shined yet another unwanted spotlight on that hard-luck agency, which has been reeling for three years from Edward Snowden’s defection to Moscow after stealing more than a million classified documents from NSA. As I explained, this latest debacle was not a “hack”—rather, it’s a clear sign that the agency has a mole.

Of course, I’ve been saying that for years. It’s not exactly a secret that NSA has one or more Russian moles in its ranks—not counting Snowden. Now the mainstream media has taken notice and we have the “another Snowden” meme upon us.

China still trying to hack U.S. firms despite Xi’s vow to refrain, analysts say

Chinese government hackers have attempted in the past few weeks to penetrate the networks of U.S. companies to steal their secrets despite a pledge by China’s president that they would not do so, according to private researchers.

Chinese hackers have targeted at least seven U.S. companies since President Xi Jinping vowed last month in Washington that his country would not conduct cyber-economic espionage — the theft of trade secrets and intellectual property for the benefit of the nation’s industries, according to CrowdStrike, a firm that helps companies track and prevent intrusions.

In the three weeks since Xi left Washington — including the day after he left, on Sept. 26 — hackers linked to the Chinese government have attempted to gain access to tech and pharmaceutical companies’ networks, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder and chief technology officer, who released a report on the issue Monday.

Bill Clinton knew Iran was behind Khobar attack, cable shows

Report says US had evidence Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah carried out 1996 bombing, which killed 19 US servicemen

Former US president Bill Clinton’s administration had enough evidence of Iran’s sponsorship of a deadly terror attack in Saudi Arabia to prompt a communique to the Iranian president, but kept the information under wraps to avoid demands for a more forceful response, the Washington Times reported on Tuesday.

Memos from the period before Clinton left office reveal that intelligence had indicated Iranian involvement in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers, which killed 19 US servicemen.