Federal News Network: Spy agencies look to standardize use of open source intelligence. “Intelligence agencies are starting to coalesce around a set of common standards and data for using open source intelligence, but challenges remain in boosting the use of OSINT throughout the intelligence community.”
Daily Beast: Shady Network of Fake Mossad Job Sites Targets Iranian Spies. “VIP Human Solutions’ website is one of 16 such sites that use the same pitch, phrasing, logos, phone numbers, and, for some, web infrastructure over the past four years to lure former spies and soldiers in Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah to come work for Israel. Intelligence experts say the crude and clumsy sites are fakes, with no plausible connection to Israel’s spy services. But the bogus recruiters’ websites have nonetheless endured, surfacing and disappearing at a number of hosts over the same four-year period to pitch to internet users in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon through Google Ads.”
Stars and Stripes: Facebook says it halts hackers tied to Palestinian security. “Facebook said Wednesday it has broken up a hacker network used by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ intelligence service in an attempt to keep tabs on journalists, human rights activists and government critics.”
The Verge: US files expanded charges against former Twitter employees accused of espionage. This is NOT the recent big hack; it’s from before. “The US has filed new and expanded charges against two former Twitter employees and a third individual for allegedly spying on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia. The three men have now been charged with acting as agents of a foreign government, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud. One individual, former Twitter employee Ahmad Abouammo, was also charged with three counts of money laundering and falsification of records to obstruct the investigation.”
Washington Post: ‘The intelligence coup of the century’. “The company, Crypto AG, got its first break with a contract to build code-making machines for U.S. troops during World War II. Flush with cash, it became a dominant maker of encryption devices for decades, navigating waves of technology from mechanical gears to electronic circuits and, finally, silicon chips and software…. But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence. These spy agencies rigged the company’s devices so they could easily break the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages.”
TuftsNow: Are Twitter Spies Part of a Trend?. “The simple act of signing up for a Twitter account or using the WhatsApp messaging service could expose users to international spying and malicious surveillance, according to two current legal cases—and the implications are particularly concerning for journalists and dissidents who criticize the leaders of authoritarian regimes. The threats also go far beyond what most individuals can defend themselves against, according to a Fletcher School professor.”
Times of India: Army warns officials against 150 fake social media profiles who target personnel for sensitive info. “The Army has cautioned its officials against 150 fake social media profiles that are being used by adversaries for honey trapping in order to extract sensitive information, sources said on Thursday.”
BBC: Ex-Twitter employees accused of spying for Saudi Arabia. “Two former employees of Twitter have been charged in the US for spying for Saudi Arabia. The charges, unsealed on Wednesday in San Francisco, allege that Saudi agents sought personal information about known Saudi critics and other Twitter users.”
Wired: Trump Tweeted a Sensitive Photo. Internet Sleuths Decoded It. “For many outside experts, the only thing more intriguing than the president sharing sensitive military intelligence was the mystery of the technology that created the image…. Within hours of Trump’s tweet, a handful of amateur satellite trackers had not only determined that the photo was taken by a spy satellite, they had figured out which satellite had taken the photo.”
CNET: Russian internet giant Yandex reportedly hacked by Western intelligence agency. “Hackers working for the US or one of its closest allies broke into Russian search giant Yandex to plant malware to spy on user accounts, Reuters reported Thursday. Called Regin, the malware is known to be used by the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance of the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, sources told the news outlet.”
AP: Experts: Spy used AI-generated face to connect with targets. “Katie Jones sure seemed plugged into Washington’s political scene. The 30-something redhead boasted a job at a top think tank and a who’s-who network of pundits and experts, from the centrist Brookings Institution to the right-wing Heritage Foundation. She was connected to a deputy assistant secretary of state, a senior aide to a senator and the economist Paul Winfree, who is being considered for a seat on the Federal Reserve. But Katie Jones doesn’t exist, The Associated Press has determined.”
CNN: Indian soldiers being ‘honey trapped’ by fake social media accounts from Pakistan. “An Indian soldier has been ‘honey trapped’ into giving sensitive information to a fake Pakistani Facebook account, highlighting the widespread ‘catfishing’ problem facing India’s military. Sombir Singh, 22, was stationed near the India-Pakistan border when he struck up an intimate online relationship with an account he believed to be operated by an Indian army medical officer.”
Ars Technica: How did Iran find CIA spies? They Googled it. “A covert ‘transitional’ channel used for communicating with sources that Central Intelligence Agency handlers couldn’t reach directly was exposed and infiltrated by Iranian intelligence in 2009. The breakdown in operational security—which apparently relied heavily on security through obscurity—was the result of Iranian intelligence officials simply using Google to locate the websites used as the communications channel after a double-agent exposed the method used by the CIA, according to a report from Yahoo News’ Zach Dorfman and Jenna McLaughlin.”
The Next Web: CIA plans to replace spies with AI. “Human spies will soon be relics of the past, and the CIA knows it. Dawn Meyerriecks, the Agency’s deputy director for technology development, recently told an audience at an intelligence conference in Florida the CIA was adapting to a new landscape where its primary adversary is a machine, not a foreign agent.”
Iowa State University: Database will help build foundation for steganalysis of forensic evidence. “There is nothing striking or remarkable about the tens of thousands of pictures an Iowa State University research team has spent the past 18 months collecting for a new database. Jennifer Newman, an associate professor of math leading the team on behalf of the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence based at Iowa State, says they are not interested in aesthetics or photos worthy of framing. In fact, the dimly lit and overexposed pictures make the database valuable for researchers interested in steganalysis.”
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