By Mr. A The Internet is easy to use, but the consequences of using it are hard for people to understand. Just stop and think about that. This technology can be used by almost anyone with a computer, and yet only a very small fraction of people using computers, smart phones, and tablets really understand…
Category: Cyber-Warfare
Espionage Files: Brit Spies Used URL Shortener to Honeypot Arab Spring Dissidents
A shadowy unit of the British intelligence agency GCHQ tried to influence online activists during the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests and the 2011 democratic uprisings largely known as the Arab Spring, as new evidence gathered from documents leaked by Edward Snowden shows. The GCHQ’s special unit, known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group…
Understanding 4th Generation Warfare: The Real Paranoia Inducing Purpose of Russian Hacks
For six months, starting in the fall of 2014, I investigated a shadowy online Russian propaganda operation called the Internet Research Agency. The agency has been widely reported in Russian media to be the brainchild of Evgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch and ally of Vladimir Putin. At the time, it employed hundreds of Russians in a…
Examining Terrorist Tactics: The Jihadist Comms Toolkit
A new report documents how extremist groups’ use of secure digital tools software has evolved. “I don’t think that there are too many [makers of encrypted communication tools who] can say that bad guys don’t use their stuff, accurately,” NSA deputy director Richard Ledgett said during the recent Defense One Tech Summit, describing ISIS’ use…
4GW: Cyberpower Crushes Coup in Turkey
Rewriting the Rulebook on coups, time to add cyberpower Mere hours after the putsch in Turkey has failed, it is still too early to understand exactly what went on. Given those constraints, I still want to discuss something which has altered “the game” so much that the existing guidebook needs to be significantly revised….
Deconstructing Terrorism: World-Check Terrorism Database Exposed
A financial crime database used by banks has been “leaked” on to the net. World-Check Risk Screening contains details about people and organisations suspected of being involved in terrorism, organised crime and money laundering, among other offences. Access is supposed to be restricted under European privacy laws. The database’s creator, Thomson Reuters, has confirmed an…
Espionage Files: South Korean Intelligence Warns Of ISIS Threat To U.S. Bases
Link this article with a recent article from John Schindler at XX Committee stating that ISIS’ Cyber Arm is indeed Russian Intelligence and you have quite a different story.-SF South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a statement release on June 19 that ISIS, through its hacking network called United Cyber Caliphate, has collected…
Cyber-War: The Big Hack of NYC
A scenario that could happen based on what already has. On December 4, 2017, at a little before nine in the morning, an executive at Goldman Sachs was swiping through the day’s market report in the backseat of a hired SUV heading south on the West Side Highway when his car suddenly swerved to the…
Surveillance State: The F.B.I.’s Growing Surveillance Gap
There are more homegrown jihadists than the feds can actually watch. And not everyone likes what the FBI is doing instead. A day after Omar Mateen killed 49 and wounded 53 in an Orlando nightclub, purportedly under the banner of the Islamic State or other terrorist groups, the FBI announced that it had repeatedly scrutinized…
Modern Crime: Will Cyber-Assassinations Soon Be A Reality?
As we hurtle forward into the digital, connected future, ever more objects are becoming targets for hackers and malicious software. Where once hacks only affected computers, they now bring down everything from cars to power grids and thermostats to secretive nuclear enrichment programs. So how long until a hack doesn’t just cause a nuisance or…