Tag Archive for: capture

German politicians hail capture of suspected Russian ‘mole’ – DW – 12/23/2022

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German politicians of various stripes lined up on Friday to warn against the dangers of Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy, after the arrest of an alleged Russian spy working inside Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND.

The man, a German national named only as Carsten L., is thought to have passed classified information to Russia while working for the BND. For security reasons, the intelligence agency has refused to release any further details about the suspect, the extent of the leaks, or about any further contacts he may have had. His home and offices have been searched by prosecutors.

“This is a wake-up call to everyone that Russia makes no exception to spying on us, too. To destabilize our system, the Federal Republic. And all the stops are being pulled out,” said Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, head of the parliament’s defense committee and member of the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), the smallest member of the three-party coalition government.

“This makes it clear, regardless of whether you are a top or middle or whoever agent, that Russia is trying to obtain information using all methods,” she told public broadcaster BR. “This second battlefield, as I call it, has existed for decades. Namely, the espionage, the cyber war, to influence us or to get information.”

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann speaking into DW microphone
FDP defense spokesperson Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann calls the latest expionage incident a “wake-up call’

Hybrid warfare

Nils Schmid, a foreign policy spokesman for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), struck a similar note. “This indicates that the temptation to spy is also present in Germany and that we have to be very attentive to the influence of Russia in Germany,” he said to DLF public broadcaster on Friday. “So it’s not just about the military threat, it’s about hybrid warfare.”

Schmid agreed with BND President Bruno Kahl, who said the case underlined the unscrupulous nature of Russia’s methods. “Russia has seen itself in a conflict, indeed in a war with the West for years and thinks that all means are permissible,” he said. “Murder of opposition members on German soil and, indeed, espionage.”

Bruno Kahl
BND President Bruno Kahl is worried about Russian spying…

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CIA’s ‘weak’ websites led to capture execution of assets in Iran, China: Report

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A flaw in the ‘covert’ websites of the Central Intelligence Agency compromised the US spy agency’s assets in countries like Iran and China, according to a report by security researchers. The researchers claimed that the internet security flaw led to the deaths of more than two dozen US assets in China in 2011 and 2012 while other assets in Iran were either executed or imprisoned by the regime. The research carried out by security experts at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab also said that the flaw could have been detected by an amateur sleuth, British website The Guardian reported. The security experts began probe following a tip from a Reuters journalist.

Joel Schectmann, the Reuters journalist had reportedly tipped the research group about a CIA asset in Iran who had been captured and later served seven years in prison after using the ‘fatally insecure network’. In 2018, two Yahoo News reporters first reported that a system used by the agency to communicate with its assets had been compromised by Iran and China.

However, the researchers said it was not publishing the full report as a move to avoid putting more CIA assets at risk. But the revelations have led to the agency’s handling of digital safety measures to come under scanner. According to the report, at least 885 websites were identified to have been used by the CIA. They were purportedly websites concerned with news, healthcare, weather etc.

The researcher group said an amateur sleuth could have mapped the entire CIA network and attributed to the US administration. According the report, these websites were active between 2004 and 2013. They were not used by the agency recently but a subset of these websites were still linked to the active employees or assets.

Calling out the ‘reckless construction’ of the infrastructure of CIA, the Citizen Lan claimed that the loophole led to the identification and the execution of the agency assets, while risking the lives of countless other individuals linked to it.

A spokesperson of the CIA said the agency takes it obligations to protect the people work with it extremely…

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Apple’s Increasingly High Walled Garden Helps Hackers Avoid Capture

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A new report highlights how despite Apple’s increasingly high walled garden ecosystem, hackers are finding more ways inside.

According to a new exposé from MIT Technology Review, Apple’s effort to increase security in both hardware and software is experiencing a downside — the Cupertino company’s walled garden approach is making it easier for hackers to hide.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” says Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at the cybersecurity watchdog Citizen Lab. “You’re going to keep out a lot of the riffraff by making it harder to break iPhones. But the 1% of top hackers are going to find a way in and, once they’re inside, the impenetrable fortress of the iPhone protects them.”

Marczak’s primary concern is that as Apple builds increasingly locked-down devices, it’s becoming more difficult for security researchers to discover hacking activity:

He argues that while the iPhone’s security is getting tighter as Apple invests millions to raise the wall, the best hackers have their own millions to buy or develop zero-click exploits that let them take over iPhones invisibly. These allow attackers to burrow into the restricted parts of the phone without ever giving the target any indication of having been compromised. And once they’re that deep inside, the security becomes a barrier that keeps investigators from spotting or understanding nefarious behavior—to the point where Marczak suspects they’re missing all but a small fraction of attacks because they cannot see behind the curtain.

And while Apple regularly updates its devices with software that fixes security flaws, these same updates can also hinder the various tools used by security researchers:

Sometimes the locked-down system can backfire even more directly. When Apple released a new version of iOS last summer in the middle of Marczak’s investigation, the phone’s new security features killed an unauthorized “jailbreak” tool Citizen Lab used to open up the iPhone. The update locked him out of the private areas of the phone, including a folder for new updates—which turned out to be exactly where hackers were hiding.

Faced with these blocks, “we just kind of threw our hands…

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Prosecutors: QAnon Shaman, others meant to capture and assassinate

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  • Justice Department prosecutors said people who participated in the pro-Trump attack of the US Capitol planned to “capture and assassinate elected officials.”
  • They made the assessment in a detention memo for Jacob Chansley, also known as the QAnon Shaman or Jake Angeli, who they say left a threat for Vice President Mike Pence.
  • The top prosecutor overseeing the Capitol insurrection cases, however, said a day later there was no “direct evidence” about assassination plans.
  • Chansley evaded Capitol police and went to the dais where Pence stood, leaving a note that said “it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming,” according to court documents.
  • He later told FBI agents that Pence was “a child-trafficking traitor” and that he planned to return to Washington, DC, for President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Some of the people who participated in the pro-Trump attack of the US Capitol intended to “capture and assassinate elected officials” including Vice President Mike Pence, according to federal prosecutors.

Department of Justice prosecutors made the assessment in a detention memo for the QAnon Shaman, who goes by Jake Angeli but whose real name is Jacob Anthony Chansley. The court filings were reviewed by Insider and first reported by Reuters.

Michael Sherwin, the top prosecutor overseeing Capitol riot cases, tried to walk back the claim Friday. In a press conference, he said “the justice department didn’t have “any direct evidence of kill capture teams.”

Prosecutors in Chansley’s case said he should be held in jail while awaiting trial, arguing that his erratic behavior made him a flight risk and his massive following in the QAnon community allowed him to quickly raise enough money to flee.

Chansley is one of its most visible followers of the false QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that President Donald Trump is fighting a “deep state” of cannibalistic, pedophilic devil-worshippers. He stormed the Capitol while shirtless and wearing large horns, fur pelts, and war paint, carrying a 6-foot-long spear.

The insurrectionists, at the urging of President Donald Trump, tried to stop Congress from counting the…

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