Archive for the 'Covert Operations' Category
NSA Links to St Petersburg Florida Drug Ring
November 17th, 2013Via: Mad Cow Morning News: Skyway Global LLC, the St. Petersburg, FL company that owned the DC-9 airline busted in Mexico carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine, made its headquarters in a 79,000 sq ft building owned by Verint Systems (NASDAQ: VRNT), a foreign tele-communications company with a contract to wiretap the U.S. for the NSA […]
Amazon Will Build and Manage Cloud Infrastructure in CIA Facility
November 16th, 2013Via: Networkworld: Amazon Web Services recently won a reported $600 million contract to build the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) a cloud. But that cloud will not look like any other cloud on the planet. Given the sensitive nature of building an IT operation for one of the United States’ most secretive organizations, details about […]
The Weaponized Internet
November 16th, 2013Via: Wired: The internet backbone — the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels — went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active weapon for attacks. According to revelations about the QUANTUM program, the NSA can “shoot” (their words) an exploit at any target it desires as his or her traffic […]
CIA Collecting Data on International Money Transfers
November 14th, 2013Via: New York Times: The Central Intelligence Agency is secretly collecting bulk records of international money transfers handled by companies like Western Union — including transactions into and out of the United States — under the same law that the National Security Agency uses for its huge database of Americans’ phone records, according to current […]
The Second Operating System Hiding in Every Mobile Phone
November 12th, 2013The Find: Back in July 2013, The Washington Post reported that nearly a decade ago, the National Security Agency developed a new technique that allowed spooks to “find cellphones even when they were turned off. JSOC troops called this ‘The Find,’ and it gave them thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored […]
Stuxnet Infected Russian Nuclear Plant, International Space Station
November 11th, 2013Via: SC Magazine: Stuxnet had ‘badly infected’ the internal network of a Russian nuclear plant after the sophisticated malware caused chaos in Iran’s uranium facilities in Natanz. The malware, widely considered to have been developed by the US Government as a means to disrupt Iran’s uranium enrichment plans, had crossed a physically separated ‘air-gapped’ network […]
UK Spies Continue “Quantum Insert” Attack via LinkedIn, Slashdot Pages
November 11th, 2013Via: Ars Technica: Der Spiegel suggests that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British sister agency to the NSA, used spoofed versions of LinkedIn and Slashdot pages to serve malware to targets. This type of attack was also used to target “nine salaried employees” of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the global oil […]
CIA Pays AT&T $10 Million Per Year for Access to Call Data
November 8th, 2013Via: New York Times: The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company’s vast database of phone records, which includes Americans’ international calls, according to government officials. The cooperation is conducted under a voluntary contract, not under subpoenas or court orders compelling the […]
Snowden Pulled Off NSA Document Heist—Using Oldest Trick in the Book?
November 8th, 2013Two-step verification? Via: Reuters: Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden used login credentials and passwords provided unwittingly by colleagues at a spy base in Hawaii to access some of the classified material he leaked to the media, sources said. A handful of agency employees who gave their login details to Snowden were identified, […]
iPads Banned from Cabinet Meetings Over Surveillance Fears
November 6th, 2013Oh yeah, China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan. *wink* In other news: NSA Can Access Data on All Smartphones Via: Telegraph: The securities services fear foreign intelligence agencies have developed the ability to turn mobile devices such as phones and tablets into bugs without the owner’s knowledge, allowing them to eavesdrop on confidential meetings. iPads were […]
