Malware Wars!… Cyber-Wars!.. Cyber-Espionage-Wars! OH MY

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Flame, DuQU, STUXNET, and now GAUSS:

Well, it was bound to happen and it finally did, a third variant of malware that is ostensibly connected to the story that Mikko Hypponen posted about after an email he got from a nuclear scientist in Iran has come to pass as true. The email claimed that a new piece of malware was playing AC/DC “Thunderstruck” at late hours on systems it had infected within the labs in Iran. I took this with a grain of salt and had some discussions with Mikko about it offline, he confirmed that the email came ostensibly from a known quantity in the AEOI and we left it at that, its unsubstantiated. Low and behold a week or two later and here we are with Eugene tweeting to the world that “GAUSS” is out there and has been since about 2011.

Gauss it seems had many functions and some of them are still unknown because there is an encryption around the payload that has yet to be cracked by anyone. Eugene has asked for a crowd sourced solution to that and I am sure that eventually someone will come out with the key and we will once again peer into the mind of these coders with a penchant for science and celestial mechanics. It seems from the data provided thus far from the reverse R&D that it is indeed the same folks doing the work with the same framework and foibles, and thus, it is again easily tied back to the US and Israel (allegedly per the mouthiness of Joe F-Bomb Veep) and that it is once again a weapon against the whole of the middle east with a decided targeting of Lebanon this time around. Which is an interesting target all the more since there has been some interesting financial news of late concerning banks and terror funding, but I digress…

I am sure many of you out there are already familiar with the technology of the malware so I am leaving all of that out here for perhaps another day. No, what I want to talk about is the larger paradigm here concerning the sandbox, espionage, warfare, and the infamous if not poorly named “CyberWar” going on as it becomes more and more apparent in scope. All of which seems to be centered on using massive malware schemes to hoover data as well as pull the trigger when necessary on periodic digital attacks on infrastructure. Something that truly has not been seen before Stuxnet and seems to only have geometrically progressed since Langer et al let the cat out of the bag on it.

Malware Wars:

Generally, in the information security sector, when I explain the prevalence of malware today I often go back to the beginning of the Morris worm. I explain the nature of early virus’ and how they were rather playful. I also explain that once the digital crime area became profitable and firewalls became a standard appliance in the network environment, the bad actors had to pivot to generally tunnel their data from the inside out home through such things as a firewall. This always seems to make sense to those I explain it to and today it is the norm. Malware, and the use of zero day as well as SE exploits to get the user to install software is the the way to go. It’s a form of digital judo really, using the opponents strength against them by finding their fulcrum weakness.

And so, it was only natural that the espionage groups of the world would turn to malware as the main means of gaining access to information that usually would take a human asset and a lot of time. By leveraging human nature and software flaws it has been a big win for some time now. I was actually amused that Henry Crumpton in the “Art of Intelligence” talks about how the CIA became a very early adopter of the network centric style of warfare. I imagine that some of the early malware out there used by spooks to steal from unprotected networks was CIA in origin and in fact that today’s Gauss probably has some relatives out there we have yet to see by people who have been doing this for some time now and we, the general public had no idea.

Times change though, and it seems that Eugene’s infrastructure for collecting data is creating a very wide dragnet for his people to find these infections and then reverse them. As we move forward expect to see more of these pop up, and surely soon, these will not just be US/UK/IL based attempts. Soon I think we will see the outsourced and insourced products of the likes of Iran and other nation states.. Perhaps we already have seen them, well, people like Mikko and Eugene may have at least. Who knows, maybe someday I will find something rooting about my network huh? Suffice to say, that this is just the beginning folks so get used to it.. And get used to seeing Eugene’s face and name popping up all over the place as well.. Superior showman that he is.

An Interesting Week of News About Lebanon and Bankers:

Meanwhile, I think it very telling and interesting as we see the scope of these malware attacks opening up, that not only one or two countries were targeted, but pretty much the whole of the Middle East as well. Seems its an equal opportunity thing, of course the malware never can quite be trusted to stay within the network or systems that it was meant for can we? There will always be spillage and potential for leaks that might tip off the opposition that its there. In the case of Gauss, it seems to have been targeted more at Lebanon, but, it may have been just one state out of a few it was really meant for. In the case of Lebanon though, and the fact that this piece of malware was also set to steal banking data from that area, one has to look on in wonder about the recent events surrounding HSBC.

Obviously this module was meant to be used either to just collect intelligence on banking going on as well as possibly a means to leverage those accounts in ways as yet undetermined by the rest of us. Only the makers and operators really know what the intent was there, but, one can extrapolate a bit. As terror finances go, the Middle East is the hotbed, so any intelligence on movement of money could be used in that light just as well as other ways to track the finances of criminal, geopolitical, and economic decisions being made there. Whether it be corporations or governmental bodies, this kind of intelligence would be highly prized and I can see why they would install that feature on Gauss.

All of this though, so close to the revelations of HSBC has me thinking about what else we might see coming down the pike soon on this front as well. Cur off the funding activities, and you make it much harder to conduct terrorism huh? Keep your eyes open.. You may see some interesting things happening soon, especially given that the Gauss is out of the bag now too. Operations will likely have to roll up a bit quicker.

Espionage vs. Sabotage vs. Overt Warfare of Cyber-Warfare:

Recently I have been working on some presentation stuff with someone on the whole cyberwar paradigm and this week just blew the lid off the whole debate again for me. The question as well as the rancor I have over the term “Cyberwar” has been going on some time now and in this instance as well as Stuxnet and Flame and DuQu, can we term it as cyberwar? Is this instead solely espionage? What about the elements of sabotage we saw in Stuxnet that caused actual kinetic reactions? Is that cyberwar? If there is no real war declared what do you term it other than sabotage within the confines of espionage and statecraft?

Then there is the whole issue of the use of “Cold War” to describe the whole effect of these operations. Now we have a possible cold war between those states like Iran who are now coding their own malware to attack our systems and to sabotage things to make our lives harder. Is that a war? A type of war? All of these questions are being bandied about all the while we are obviously prosecuting said war in theater as I write this. I personally am at a loss to say exactly what it is or what to term it really. Neither does the DoD at this point as they are still working on doctrine to put out there for the warriors to follow. Is there a need for prosecuting this war? It would seem that the US and others working with them seem to think so. I for one can understand the desire to and the hubris to actually do it.

Hubris though, has a funny way of coming back on you in spectacular blowback. This is my greatest fear and seemingly others, however, we still have a country and a government that is flailing about *cough the Senate cough* unable to do anything constructive to protect our own infrastructure even at a low level. So, i would think twice about the scenarios of actually leaking statements of “we did it” so quickly even if you perceive that the opposition has no current ability to strike back.. Cuz soon enough they will. It certainly won’t be a grand scale attack on our grid or telco when it does happen, but, we will likely see pockets of trouble and Iran or others will pop up with a smile, waving, and saying “HA HA!” when it does occur.

The Sandbox and The Wars We Are Prosecuting There by Malware Proxy:

Back to the Middle East though… We have been entrenched in there for so so long. Growing up I regularly watched the news reports about Lebanon and Israel, Iran and the hostages, Iraq, Saddam, Russian Proxy wars via terrorism, Ghadaffi and his ambitions as well as terror plots (which also hit close to home with the Lockerbee bombing) You kids today might think this is all new, but let me tell you, this has been going on for a long long time. One might even say thousands of years (Mecca anyone? Crusades?) So, it’s little wonder then that this would all be focused on the Med.

We are conducting proxy wars not only because of 9/11 but also economic and energy reasons as well. You want a good taste of that? Take a look at “Three Days of the Condor” a movie about a fictional “reader” for the CIA who stumbles on to a plan to disrupt governments in the Middle East to affect oil prices and access. For every person that said the Iraq war and Afghanistan wasn’t about oil, I say to them look at the bigger picture. There are echoes there of control and access that you cannot ignore. Frankly, if there wasn’t oil and money in the region, I think we would have quite a different story to look on as regards our implementing our forces there.

So, with that in mind, and with terrorism and nuclear ambitions (Iran) look at the malware targeting going on. Look at all of the nascent “Arab Springs” going on (albeit really, these are not springs, these are uprisings) we have peoples who want not to live under oppressive regimes not just because they aren’t free to buy an iPhone or surf porn, but they are also oppressed tribes or sects that no longer wish to be abused. All of this though, all of the fighting and insurgency upsets the very delicate balance that is the Middle East. Something that we in the US for our part, have been trying to cultivate (stability) even if that stability came from another strongman that we really don’t care for, but, who will work with us in trade and positional relevance to other states.

In goes the malware.. Not only to see what’s going on, but also to stop things from happening. These areas can be notoriously hard to have HUMINT in and its just easier to send in malware and rely on human nature to have a larger boon in intelligence than to try and recruit people to spy. It’s as simple as that. Hear that sucking sound? That’s all their data going to a server in Virginia. In the eyes of the services and the government, this is clearly the rights means to the ends they desire.

We Have Many Tigers by The Tail and I Expect Blowback:

Like I said before though, blowback has a nasty habit of boomeranging and here we have multiple states to deal with. Sure, not all of them has the ability to strike back at us in kind, but, as you have seen in Bulgaria, the Iranians just decided to go with their usual Hezbollah proxy war of terrorism. Others may do the same, or, they may bide their time and start hiring coders on the internet. Maybe they will hire out of Russia, or China perhaps. Hell, it’s all for sale now in the net right? The problem overall is that since we claimed the Iran attack at Natanz, we now are not only the big boy on the block, we are now the go to to be blamed for anything. Even if we say we didn’t do it, who’s gonna really believe us?

The cyber-genie is out of the cyber-bottle.

Then, this week we saw something new occur. A PSYOP, albeit a bad one, was perpetrated by the Assad regime it seems. Reuters was hacked and stories tweeted/placed on the net about how the rebel forces in Aleppo had cut and run. It was an interesting idea, but, it was ineffective for a number of reasons. The crux though is that Reuters saw it and immediately said it was false. So, no one really believed the stories. However, a more subtle approach at PSYOPS or DISINFO campaigns is likely in the offing for the near future I’d think. Surely we have been doing this for a while against them, whether it be in the news cycles or more subtle sock puppets online in social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. The US has been doing this for a long time and is well practiced. Syria though, not so much.

I have mentioned the other events above, but here are some links to stories for you to read up on it…

• PSYOPS Operations by the nascent Syrian cyber warfare units on Reuters
• Hezbollah’s attack in Bulgaria (bus bombing) in response to STUXNET and other machinations
• Ostensible output of INTEL from Gauss that may have gotten HSBC in trouble and others to come (Terrorism funding and money laundering)

All in all though, I’d have to say that once the players become more sophisticated, we may in fact see some attacks against us that might work. Albeit those attacks will not be the “Cyber Pearl Harbor” that Dr. Cyberlove would like you to be afraid of. Politically too, there will be blowback from the Middle East now. I am sure that even after Wikileaks cables dump, the governments of the Med thought at least they could foresee what the US was up to and have a modicum of statecraft occur. Now though, I think we have pissed in the pool a bit too much and only have ourselves to blame with the shit hits the fan and we don’t have that many friends any more to rely on.

It’s a delicate balance.. #shutupeugene

Pandora’s Box Has Been Opened:

In the end, we have opened Pandora’s box and there is no way to get that which has escaped back into it. We have given the weapon framework away due to the nature of the carrier. Even if Gauss is encrypted, it will be broken and then what? Unlike traditional weapons that destroy themselves, the malware we have sent can be easily reverse engineered. It will give ideas to those wishing to create better versions and they will be turned on us in targeted and wide fashions to wreak as much digital havoc as possible. Unfortunately, you and I my friends are the collateral damage here, as we all depend on the systems that these types of malware insert themselves into and manipulate.

It is certainly evident as I stated above, our government here in the US is unable to come up with reasonable means to protect our systems. Systems that they do not own, Hell, the internet itself is not a government run or owned entity either, and yet they want to have an executive ability to shut it down? This alone shows you the problem of their thinking processes. They then decide to open the box and release the malware genie anyway… It’s all kind of scary when you think about it. If this is hard to concieve, lets put it in terms of biological weapons.. Weapons systems that have been banned since Nixon was in office.

The allusion should be quite easy to understand. Especially since malware was originally termed “Virus” There is a direct analogy there. Anyway, here’s the crux of it all. Just like bioweapons, digital “bioware” for lack of a better term, also cannot be controlled once let into the environment. Things mutate, whether at the hand of people or systems, things will not be contained within the intended victims. They will escape (as did all the malware we have seen) and will tend to have unforeseen consequences. God forbid we start really working on polymorphics again huh? If the circumstances are right, then, we could have a problem.

Will we eventually have to have another treaty ban on malware of this kind?

Time will tell.. Until then, we all will just be along for the cyberwar ride I guess. We seem to be steadily marching toward the “cyberwar” everyone is talking about… determined really to prosecute it… But will it get us anywhere?

K.

Defcon Grows Up and Gets Recruited As An Asset…

I came to Defcon this year as it turned 20 and after much had changed on the world stage regarding our business (INFOSEC/Pentesting/Dev/SECOPS) much remained the same. What has really changed though, and could be seen at this anniversary year was just how much our antics and interests were now the new “hotness” to the government and the military. Never before had the NSA had a booth at our conference but this year, they were there with recruiting in mind and that is a big change.

However, you may be saying to yourself right about now “Uhh, but, this has been going on a while, not just now” Well, yes, it has, but, what I have noticed this last con was that it’s not all about the tech, this year, it was also recruitment of human assets who would give “intelligence” to the players like NSA. No more are they just looking for programs and programmers, but also seeking out to make connections with people who have connections. You see, as Shawn Henry said as well as General Alexnder, “we need you to keep an eye out and tell us if you see something” What I heard was the equivalent of “if you see something say something” that the TSA has plastered at airports.

This is an important paradigm that we all need to be aware of. With the advent of Anonymous and Stuxnet as well as the nascent idea of the internet becoming a “digital nation state” we all have to be mindful that while the technologies out there are a commodity, so too are we in the great game of cold war intelligence and cyber war. We are the commodity that makes the new exploit as well as being the HUMINT asset that intelligence agencies need to “collect” with.

Now, while you are pondering that, consider the fact that the “opposition” is also trying to curry favor and recruit us as well…

Yup, that’s right. That party you might be attending might in fact have operators from other countries clandestine services too. In fact, that party could even be funded by said agencies and players to get you to chat and perhaps leak meaningful information. Think about it, how many of you out there reading this post work for fortune 500 companies as security technicians? What kind of data is in your head that might be of use to a foreign operative?

Ponder that as you sip that free drink late in the day. Say, did you know that the Chinese most preferable means to gaining intel with visiting professors and the like, is to have them over tired and tipsy? It’s true, it’s low level but its been used on many an occasion. You see, once you start talking, then you open the door for more rapport building, and then it’s pretty much over. One wonders how many Los Alamos folks had the same treatment on trips to China. Now think about the average Defcon party and the amount of alcohol and sleep deprivation we have going on there.

Just sayin…

So, look at it from that perspective. Now the NSA has come to the con just as the FBI and other agencies and security bodies so too will the “other guys” I don’t know how many of you out there come from military or “other” backgrounds where you will have a DSS or counterintelligence training,but, I am assuming that a vast majority of the folks attending the cons today do not have that background, especially the younger ones who’s only been in the security arena a short time. Pentesters who know SE should be able to easily detect some of the techniques used to recruit an asset, and tease out information.. Others, maybe not so much.

So here we are today, APT (Yes China being one purveyor of APT attacks) are not only using malware to get into systems but also recruiting sources to help them in their goals. Used to be a time that it really only was the nuclear scientists getting the attention… Today though, everything is game, you might make widgets, but that doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t want to know what you know.

Pssst… It’s still espionage kids… And now YOU are part of it because you hold interesting information.

How’s that for some “Threat Intelligence” huh?

Which brings me to the second line of thinking or topic that came up this year. The government is asking us to consider more “threat intelligence” and to bring them in on the loop. See, right there, they are asking you to be an asset.. Did that occur to you? Of course I know for the most part you all thought, as I did too, that the idea was a bit silly.

Why?

Because who really has that kind of threat intel program going on today? Hell, we are all pretty much trying to just keep our shit together right? On average, unless you work for a major company,you may not even have an SIEM or even snort instance right? How are you going to convince your employer that you need that stuff and then more so, to pass that intel to the government? The only groups I have known to do this are the DIB partners, and they do it because they don’t want to lose contracts for the military.

So now, we would all be assets? All corporations out there, whether they are being attacked by APT or Anonymous, would be reporting their incursions or attempts at them to the government? That’s kinda spooky really. This also circles back nicely to the idea that we all now, all of us in the INFOSEC community are now collection nodes for SIGINT/HUMINT/MASINT/ELINT and not many of us have had the training to be analysts.

You see, when you use the words “Threat Intelligence” this has some context that some may not get right away. It’s not just what IP is hitting us and with what attacks anymore.. It’s about the context around all of that and the attribution that is needed for cyber warfare, or more likely, cyber intelligence operations. I expect to see a lot more of this lobbying going on at all of the cons as well as more people sidling up to the attendee’s and asking “so, what’s going on out there?”

For those of you not acquainted with HUMINT and it’s techniques, I suggest you read “The Art Of Intelligence” By Henry Crump and learn… Why? Because that guy you’re talking to at the cool party might just be a PRC case officer…

Interesting times….

K.

Hard Power, Soft Power, Economic Power, and The Power of Economic Digital Espionage

Hard power is a term used in international relations. Hard power is a theory that describes using military and economic means to influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies. It is used in contrast to soft power, which refers to power that comes from diplomacy, culture and history. While the existence of hard power has a long history, the term arose when Joseph Nye coined ‘soft power’ as a new, and different form of power in asovereign state’s foreign policy.^[3] Hard power lies at the command Hegemon end of the spectrum of behaviors and describes a nation’s ability to coerce or induce another nation to perform a course of action. This can be done through military power which consists of coercive diplomacy, war, and alliance using threats and force with the aim of coercion, deterrence, and protection. Alternatively economic power which relies on aid, bribes and economic sanctions can be used in order to induce and coerce.

While the term ‘hard power’ generally refers to diplomacy, it can also be used to describe forms of negotiation which involve pressure or threats as leverage.

A Conversation 

Over the weekend I had a twitter conversation (140 char’s at a time, rough) about the meaning of “Soft Power” in the current parlance propounded by Joseph Nye. I have a different opinion of the nomenclature concerning the terms “Soft Power” and “Hard Power” in today’s political and economic environment. While the other party I was speaking to had a more strict version of thinking per Mr. Nye’s (he coined the term soft power) definition. I myself feel that today things are a little more complex for the terms to be so tight given that now economic “hard power” seems to have morphed into a vast array of economic digital espionage that softly, along with other soft power style moves, create a hard power outcome of directing or tricking other countries into actions that the others desire.

The primary mover and shaker of this for me is of course China and one only has to look at the news cycle to see both these types of “power” being wielded by the RPC. I think it is time to take a look at the means and the philosophies that China has been using to effect the changes that they need to become not only the predominant military force in the world, but more so an economic juggernaut that will outweigh and perhaps stealthily creep behind and slit the throats of other countries in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Hard vs. Soft Powers and Nomenclature

As seen above in the quoted text, hard power is seen as economic sanctions as well as military actions. This is all in response to the soft power of politics and the methods of carrot to the hard power stick. All of these allude to direct actions that are perceived as means to manipulate nations states and other actors into actions desired by the power that is employing them. I would put to you all that there is another form of “soft power” that the Chinese have really created over the last decade that employs a more stealthily nimble approach from the espionage arena (hard power by strict definition?) and economic strategies that, with nationalistic goals of grand scale, have wrought a new type of “power”

Perhaps this power should be called “Covert Soft Power” as it is being employed covertly both in the hacking of companies to steal their economic secrets (IP) as well as by the addition of espionage and common business tactics to buy into, and or subvert companies to facilitate access to economic secrets as well as out maneuver companies and close them out on deals etc. All of this seems logical to me (adding this meaning to the term) but perhaps I am outside the norms on this one. The way I see it though, there is a new vector here that the Chinese are leveraging and I think we could use a little thought on the matter and perhaps how to counteract it all.

China, The Hard and Soft Power via Economic Espionage and Investment

China in particular has been working at a multiply pronged and diligent attack on systems and corporations as well as governments to effect the long game strategies that they want. Instead of attacking things head on, the Chinese prefer the methods of “The Thousand Grains of Sand” where many operations and operators work to effect the larger outcomes from small pieces. The Chinese are patient, and because of the Eastern mind, seem to come at things in a more subtle way than most of us in the West tend to think about. In all, the subversion and outright theft of IP has a multipurpose goal of broadening their technical abilities, their economic abilities, and overall, their dominance in the world as a power.

What the Chinese have realized mostly though, is that the subtle knife is the best way to control the enemy, slowly, and subtly slitting the throat of the opponent without a struggle. Frankly, I admire the approach really. In terms of the argument of “soft power” I place these efforts squarely into it because in tandem with certain “political” maneuvers, they can have huge net effects. By combining the military, the economic, and the political aspects of soft and hard power, and the gray’s in between, China has become a force to be reckoned with. So, I put it to you all here, that there is room for a change within the nomenclature of Mr. Nye’s coinage and that I think, in order to better understand the mosaic that is happening, we need to re-tool some of the ideas we have pre-conceived for ourselves.

A New Battlespace, A New Set of Battles 

Finally, I would also put it to you all that the battle space is much different today than it has been in the past. Not only do we have the digital landscape, but said same digital landscape, that makes it easier to steal, also makes everything more interconnected. By interconnected, I mean that it is far easier to effect large changes to companies by the automation that we all have in place today to speed up our transactions. Today it is far easier to quickly make instant trades, and effect the bottom line of a company for the better or worse as well as steal data in minutes that in the past, would have taken days, weeks, or months to ex-filtrate from a company via conventional HUMINT means.

In the scenarios run on trades on the markets, you can see how one alleged “fat finger” incident can have a large scale and rippling effect on the whole economies of states, never mind businesses individually. So, once again, the battle space has changed greatly because of the interconnected-ness of things. It seems that the matters of state now more than before, can be changed through the soft power of the digital attack or manipulation. This is what I mean by “soft power” or perhaps the term I mentioned above “Covert Soft Power”, attacks that we are seeing now, and are having trouble truly attributing to nation-state, corporate, or individual actors are having larger and larger effects on our economy, our policies, and our long term viability as nations, companies, or groups.

At the end of the day though, I suggest that we are being manipulated by masters at the game of “Go” and we need to pay attention to every subtlety and not be so rigidly minded. It is the water that flows around and over the rock, eventually wearing it down to nothing.

K.

INFOPOCALYPSE: You Can Lead The World To The Security Trough.. But You Can’t Make Them Think.

“Dark, profound it was, and cloudy, so that though I fixed my sight on the bottom I did not discern anything there”

(Dante Alighieri; The Inferno)

The current state of the Security “Industry”

It seems that once again people who I have acquaintance with in the security industry are wondering just how to interface with corporations and governments in order to build a base of comprehension about the need for information security. The problems though are myriad with these questions and the task to reach people can be a daunting one, never mind when you have groups of them in hierarchies that comprise some of the worst group think in the world (AKA corporations)

Added issues for the “industry” also surround the fact that it is one at all. Once something moves from an avocation to a profession, you have the high chance of it becoming industrialised. By saying something has been made industrialised, implies to many, the cookie cutter Henry Ford model really. In the security world, we have seen this from the perspective of magic boxes that promise to negate security vulnerabilities as well as teams of consultants who will “securitize” the company that is hiring them with magic tools and wizardry. The net effect here is that those paying for and buying into such products and services may as well be buying a handful of magic beans instead.

Now, not every company will be efficacious in their assessments nor live up to the promises they make for their hardware/software solutions. Many practitioners out there and companies really try to do the right thing and do so pretty well. However, just as in any other business, there are charlatans and a wide range of skilled and unskilled plying their arts as well. Frankly, all that can be said on this issue is “Caveat Emptor”  It’s a crap shoot really when it comes to goods and services for security solutions. The key is though, to be able to secure yourselves as a company/entity from the standpoint of BASIC security tenets up.

Often its the simple things that allow for complete compromise.. Not just some exotic 0day.

So we have a cacophony of companies out there vying for people’s dollars as well as a news cycle filled with FUD that, in some cases are directly lifted from the white papers or interviews with key players from those said same companies seeking dollars. It is all this white noise that some now, are lamenting and wondering just how do we reign things in and get a stable base to work from in an ethical way to protect companies and individuals from information security meltdowns. More so it seems lately, the question has been how do we reach these people in the first place? How do we actually get a meaningful dialogue with the corporate masters and have them come away with the fundamentals of security as being “important”

Unfortunately, I think that there are some major psychological and sociological hurdles to overcome to reach that point where we can evince the response we all would like to see out of those C level execs. I have written about them before, but I will touch on them again later in this piece. Suffice to say, we all have a tough row to hoe where this is concerned, so, I expect there to be no easy answer… Nor really, any satisfactory conclusions either.

“It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing”

(Shakespeare; MacBeth)

Security Joan of Arc’s and their Security Crusade:

Joan De Arc was a woman ahead of her time. She wore men’s clothing and lead the French in battle against the English and to victory, all as a teen girl. She later was burned at the steak for heresy and just recently made a saint many years later. I give you this little history lesson (link included) to give you an idea of who you all are in the security industry lamenting over not being listened to. You too may be ahead of your time, but, just as she was, you too will not be listened to because your ideas (to the listeners) are “radical”

Now, radical is a term I am using to denote how the corporate types are seeing it. We, the security advocates, do not see these concepts as radical, but instead as common everyday things that should be practices (complex passwords, patching effectively, etc) They (the client) see these things as impediments to their daily lives, their bottom lines, and their agenda’s both personal and corporate. There are many players here, and all of them have agenda’s of their own. This is a truism that you must accept and understand before you rail against the system that is not listening to your advice.

Here’s a bit of a secret for you.. The more ardent you seem, the more likely you will be branded a “Joan” The perception will be that you are a heretic and should not be listened to. Instead you should be marginalised in favour of the status quo.. After all, they have gone about their business every day for years and they are just fine! The more you rail, or warn with dire tones, the more you will be placed at the back of the mind.

Think Richard Clarke (I heard that chuckle out there)

Though Joan inspired the French forces to battle on and win more than a few battles, she eventually was burned at the steak. Much of this was because of her unique nature and fervour. Much as yours may do the same to you… Without of course literally being burned at the steak and you all must learn this. I think you have to take a page from the hackers playbook really and use the axiom of being a “Ninja”

The subtle knife wins the battle.

 

“If the Apocalypse comes, beep me”

(Joss Whedon;Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

What’s the worst that could happen really?

The quote above really made me chuckle in thinking about this article and the problems surrounding the premise. This I think, is the epitome of some people’s attitudes on security. Most folks just go along their days oblivious to the basic security measures that we would like them to practice as security evangelists. The simple fact is that like other apocalypse scenarios, people just have not lived through them and been affected by them to change their behaviours accordingly. What solidified this for me recently was the snow storm last October here in New England that caught so many people flat footed. They simply had not ever really had to rely on their wits and whatever they had on hand before like this. When the government and the corporations (CL&P) failed to provide their services to the populace, the populace began to freak out.

Its the same thing for information security. Whether it is the government or the corporations that supply us all, both are comprised of people who all pretty much lack this perspective of being without, or having really bad things happen to them. 9/11 comes the closest, but, that only affected NYC and DC directly (i.e. explosions and nightmarish scenarios with high casualties) In the case of corporations, you have lawyers and layers of people to blame, so really, what are the risk evaluations here when it is easy to deflect blame or responsibility? For that matter, it was inconceivable to many in the government (lookin at you Condi) that terrorists would use planes as missiles… Even though a month before a report was handed out with that very scenario on the cover.

The core of the idea is this. Human nature on average, and a certain kind of psychology (normative) that says “This can’t happen to us” We all have it, just some of us are forward thinking and see the potentials. Those forward thinkers are likely security conscious and willing to go out of their way to carry out actions to insure their security. Things like storing extra food and water as well as other things that they might need in case of emergency. These can be life of death deal breakers.. Not so much for information security at your local Acme Widget Corp. In the corporate model, they have the luxury of “It’s somebody else’s problem” So, these things are usually not too important to them unless that person making the decision is cognisant of the issues AND responsible for them. Unfortunately, as we have learned these last 10 years or so, responsibility is not their strong suit.

So, on they go.. About their business after you, the security curmudgeon has told them that they need to store food for the winter..

But the grasshoppers, they don’t listen… Until they are at your door in the snow begging for food.

 

“More has been screwed up on the battlefield and misunderstood in the Pentagon because of a lack of understanding of the English language than any other single factor.“

(John W. Vessey, Jr.)

How do we communicate and manipulate our elephants?

Back to the issue of how to communicate the things we feel important. This has been a huge issue for the security community for a couple of reasons.

1. The whole Joan of Arc thing above
2. The languages we speak are.. Well.. like Tamarian and theirs are corporate speak.

We, the security practitioners, often speak in metaphor and exotic language to the average corporate manager. You have all seen it before, when their eyes glaze over and they are elsewhere. We can go on and on about technical issues but we never really seem to get them to that trough in the title. Sometimes you can get them to the trough easily enough by hacking them (pentesting) but then they think;

“Well this guy is a hacker… No one else could do this! What are the chances this is going to really happen? Naaahhh forget it, it’s not likely”

So there is a bias already against doing the things that we recommend. Then comes the money, the time, and the pain points of having to practice due diligence. This is where they turn off completely and the rubric of it is that unless they are FORCED to carry out due diligence by law or mandate, they won’t. We all have seen it.. Admit it.. It’s human nature to be lazy about things and it is also human nature to not conceive that the bad things could happen to them, so it would be best to prepare and fight against them.

So, how do we communicate with these people and get them on the same page?

I have no answers save this;

“Some get it.. Some don’t”

That’s the crux.. You have to accept that you as the security practitioner will NEVER reach everyone. Some will just say thank you and good day… And you have to accept that and walk away. As long as you have performed the due diligence and told them of their problems.. You have done all you can. You can try and persuade or cajole them… But, in the end, only those who get it or have been burned before will actually listen and act on the recommendations you make.

“The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds”

(John F. Kennedy)

The Eternal Struggle

There you have it. This will always be the case and it will always be the one thing that others seeking to compromise corporations and governments will rely on. The foolishness of those who do not plan ahead will be their undoing..

Eventually.

All you can do sage security wonk, is calmly and professionally explain to them the issues and leave it to them to drink.

K.

The Son of Stuxnet… Methinks The Cart Be Before Ye Horse

My dear dear lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation—that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times barr’d-up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

Mowbray, Richard II Act 1 Scene 1

 

 

As fate would have it, today I saw a tweet that said Symantec had a paper coming out on “Stuxnet II” I surfed on over and read the document and what I was left with was this;

“We rushed to judgement here and wanted to get this out to get attention before anyone else did.. Here’s STUXNET REDUX!”

Now, sure, the code base appears to be Stuxnet’s and yes, there are similarities because of this, however, calling this Stuxnet Redux or “Son of Stuxnet” is just a way of patently seeking attention through tabloid style assumptions put on the Internet. Let me pick this apart a bit and you decide…

Code Bases and Re-Tasking

So ok, the coders seemed to have access to the FULL source of Stuxnet. It has been out there a while and surely some people in the world of “APT” have had access to this. It’s not like it was some modified version of Ebola kept at Sverdlosk at Biopreparate. Had you even considered that it was released on purpose as chaff to get others to tinker with it and thus middy the waters?

I’m guessing not from the report that I read, hurried as it was and full of conclusions being jumped to. In fact, Symantec even said that they had not fully audited the code! C’mon…

Alrighty then, we have a newly released and re-tasked version of Stuxnet that turns out to be just a recon tool to steal data. I find it interesting that they make so much of this and intone that the coders of the original are up to shenanigans again but fail to even beg the question that it could be anyone with the requisite skills to cut into the original code (after it had been laid out for everyone to look at) and re-task it with a new time frame. Please note that there are not the original 0day attacks and multiplicity factors of infection vectors as well as exfiltration schemes.

So, not really so complicated as I see it.. You?

The original code/malware was very targeted and this, well this is really just like any other APT attack that I have seen out there.. In fact, in some ways its less clever than the APT attacks out there from the past.

So, really Symantec, take a step back and mull this all over again before you release.. Say.. Just who else had the code and you were worried about that would steal your thunder here?

Pathetic.

RATS, RECON, & Targets

Speaking of the infiltration/ex-filtration picture, I see from the report that they are linking the RAT to the original worm but have not real proof that it came from DUQU! It was found in situ on the box that they analyzed and make the assumed statement that it was “likely” downloaded by the malware via its comms to the C&C.

Once again I say “Evidence Much?”

You have no basis other than assumption but you make no real clarification on this. Though there is mention of a DQ.tmp file which I assume means that it came from the RAT.. But.. Proof again please? It’s the little things that count here and I see a great failure in your haste Symantec.

Another thing that is bugging me now is that the news cycle is making connections to DUQU with attacks on power grids.

HOLY WTF?

Symantec, DO YOU HAVE EVIDENCE of what companies were “Targeted” by this malware re-hash? If so, you should come out of the closet here a bit because this is BS unless you have proof. I of course understand that you cannot name the companies, but CONFIRM OR DENY that they were all Power companies before making claims and allusions that the media will just shriek at the top of their lungs placing more FUD on the headlines.

Or… Wait.. Now that might be an advantage to you guys huh?

Ponder.. Ponder…Ponder…

Well played….

What it all boils down to for me is this:

Someone re-tasked the malware and stuck a common RAT in it. Until you (Symantec) come up with more solid evidence of more interesting and technical attacks, then I call bullshit on you.

What? No Mention Of APT Here?

Meanwhile, I see that people are assiduously avoiding the APT word… Hmmmm What does this attack really remind one of… APT!

There, I said it.

APT attacks:

• Infiltrate
• Seek data
• Exfiltrate data
• Keep access

And therein lies the rub. DUQU has a 36 day shelf life. Now, this is good from a foot-printing level AND could be excellent for setting up the next attack vector that could include the component of sustained access. So, the reality here for me is that this was a foot print attempt on whatever companies it was set upon. It was a recon mission and that was all.

NOT STUXNET..NOT SON OF STUXNET!

Had you called it a Stuxnet like attack re-purposing code then I would have had less problems with your document Symantec. Instead we got FUD in a hurry.

Baseless Claims: Pictures Or It Never Happened!

Finally, I would like to see Symantec spend some more time here as well as see others pull this all apart. I want to see more proof before you all go off half cocked and get the straights all upset over an attack that may have nothing to do with the original.

Frankly, I find your faith in rationality disturbing… Symantec…

K.

Anon Analytics: Stock Manipulation Through Information Release & The Slippery Slope

It's all about the information Maaahhty

Cosmo: Posit: People think a bank might be financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Consequence: People start to withdraw their money.
Cosmo: Result: Pretty soon it is financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Conclusion: You can make banks fail.
Cosmo: Bzzt. I’ve already done that. Maybe you’ve heard about a few? Think bigger.
Martin Bishop: Stock market?
Cosmo: Yes.
Martin Bishop: Currency market?
Cosmo: Yes.
Martin Bishop: Commodities market?
Cosmo: Yes.
Martin Bishop: Small countries?

In a previous post I wrote about the nascent “Anon Analytics” group that had popped up claiming that they were going to out corruption in corporations by using OSINT and inside leaks/whistle-blowers. On the face of it, I thought this was a good idea and said as much in the post. I had caveats though that they confirm their information and that they be above board. I received a response from Anon Analytics thanking me for the article and that they had found it interesting.  I however, had failed to read the disclaimer on the first report by Anon Analytics and as such, this is my mea culpa as well as another warning to Anon that they need to keep things above board here.. Lest they become just as bad as those who they are claiming they are outing for misdeeds.

I was alerted to an article from Finance Asia that called them on the fact that within this disclaimer, they are making the statement that the assumption must be made that the “Partners, Affiliates, Consultants, Clients, and other related parties” hold “short” positions in the securities profiled in the report. Which means that all of the parties named there will profit from shorts due to the data being released and potentially causing the stock to plummet and fail.

Say.. Isn’t that what got us all into this fix today with the markets and the banks in general?

Yes, indeed, that is the case and this statement within their disclaimer alone causes me to pretty much rescind my previous statements about any kind of approval for these efforts by Anon Analytics. Really, this is the pot calling the kettle black and then throwing feces to boot. This is not how you rectify malfeasance! Frankly, this could just then be considered only a machination to make money off of the use of information warfare (disinformation as well) to profit and manipulate the markets.

.. And as far as I know, this is rather illegal…

Look, what I said before about being above board with this effort still stands. If you want to right wrongs then you cannot use this effort as a potential piggy bank as well. At the present time, I cannot confirm all of your data from Chaoda however, if you look at the news following the reports release, you can see how you affected the market and the stock. The cause and effect may or may not have anything to do with your report in fact, but, time will tell if there are any real arrests in the whole affair concerning Chaoda. If there aren’t and nothing can be conclusively proven, then what has really been done to the company? Some losses yes, and, by your statement, those around you will profit.. Potentially.

If you want to make a difference, you cannot be a party to profit from information warfare that you are generating.

K.

PLC Controlers, Stuxnet, and Kinetic Attacks: Blackhat 2011

Since the advent of Stuxnet, the problem of SCADA (PLC) systems and their control vulnerabilities has become the focus of the world. In that this seems to be the new flavor of the day because someone (A nation state actor) decided to use those known vulnerabilities (at least 10 years worth of them) to exploit the Siemens systems at Natanz and Bushehr nuclear facilities in Iran we now have a new form of terrorist attack as Cofer Black pointed out in the keynote to Blackhat.

Dillon Beresford presented a talk on the Siemens 7 system vulnerabilities at Blackhat yesterday and did a great engineering job on the Siemens PLC system 7 attacks. However, in being so close to the subject, at least in the presentation, he seemed ill equipped to understand some of the ramifications of the exploit that was used against Iran and the amount of work that had to go into it to pull it off.

I say this because of the offhand comment that a single actor (hacker in a basement) could in fact have come up with the exploit code and he is technically right. He has singly come up with more exploit code and plugins to Metasploit to prove it, but, the attack on Iran was more complex than just exploit code for a Siemens 7 PLC. This too seemed to elude him in the statement that he did no understand the reasoning for the pivot point of the Windows machines that were infected with the worm that injected the code into the system 7.

The reasons for the attack vector pivot point is simply this;

The actors who created this exploit(s) wanted to be able to infect non connected systems at key hardened facilities that they did not have access to. Facilities that may have had regular network connections that might allow access to the worm and thus infect not only one site but many and not just the PLC systems themselves. This attack was multi purpose and needed to be persistent for a long time in order to carry out its mission goal.

And the goals seem pretty evident now:

Have the centrifuges eat themselves

Have the product from the centrifuges be compromised and thus put Iran’s nuclear program even further back.

The fact is, that the exploit code for the PLC’s was small in comparison to the amount of work and 0day that went into the worm itself. This is a key feature of the attack and something that Beresford seemed to miss. The worm was indeed the delivery system and it was likely carried into the Bushehr facility by a contractor (my thought is Russian as they were working on the Iranian program and had access) on a USB stick. Once inside, the malware had the ability to detect, spread, and inject the exploit code specific to the Siemens PLC systems at those facilities.

This brings me to a second point on all of this. The intelligence needed to know exactly what systems the Iranians had was something only a nation state actor could really have the resources to gather. This was in fact a nation state attack from all the signs of it. That it used exploits for SCADA systems that were known to be vulnerable for some time is the only twist. However, that twist had been used in the past and as long ago as the Reagan era.

An attack on a Russian pipeline was eventually disclosed by the CIA as a worm that attacked the systems of the pipeline (i.e. the PLC’s controlling the pressure of the gas) and caused a 3 kiloton explosion. This worm was likely created by the CIA and used to help dismantle the USSR.. Well at least cause some heavy damage to a pipeline that was in contention at the very least. So, this type of attack is NOT NEW. It was a quietly known vector of attack as far back (publically) as 2004 when it was revealed to the public at large, but much longer known about in intelligence circles.

The short and long, the exploits may be new in some cases, but, the type of attack is not at all.

The real difference today though is that we have the hacker community out there able to get their hands on code easily and even perhaps the PLC systems themselves to create even more exploits. Add to this that many SCADA systems have been connected to the Internet (as they should NEVER BE) ripe for attack and we have a big problem. However, the proof of concept now is out there, the exploit code is available and all it will take is an aggressor tenacious enough to write the malware to have another Stuxnet type attack on less hardened systems. An attack that could bring down the grid, cause the poop factory to explode and leak into our drinking water, or, like in Russia, have our pipelines explode in 3 kiloton explosions.

This Dillon is the key point and I know you get that. So, lets extrapolate further, how about in future conferences we have more of what Dillon did. He went to Siemens and gave them the exploit code and showed them the problems. They, unlike many companies, are taking up the challenge and not trying to hide the problems but instead are actively working on them to re-mediate. The next step is to go to EVERY PLC maker (wink wink Big O and the Administration.. Oh DHS maybe?) and bitch slap them into doing something about the problems? As Dillon pointed out, these systems are pretty open and inter-operable, so the code is likely to be just as bad everywhere.

If we don’t.. We are likley to wake up one day to a big explosion and it may just be an accident.. Or, it could be another targeted attack like Stuxnet.

K.

PS.. One small thing Dillon.. Please, attend Toastmasters. I think it would help you greatly. You speak too softly and did not enunciate.

Team Inject0r: The Multinational Connection

The recent compromise of a NATO server by “Team Inj3ct0r” has recently made the news, but, as the media usually do, they did not look any deeper than the website for Inj3ct0r and perhaps a little data as to what the team said in a text doc on the compromised server. A further examination of the group shows that Inj3ctor has been around since 2008, and has ties to Chinese hackers as well as Russia, Turkey and other countries.

This could change the paradigm on the “hacktivism” moniker that Team Inj3ctor has branded themselves with recently (post the goings on with Anonymous and LulzSec/Antisec movements) Before these movements, this site and the teams all were loosely linked and purveyors of 0day, and not so much in it for any political means. What has changed? Who might benefit here to use the hacktivism movement as a cover for hacking activities that could cause a stir?

… Maybe the PLA? Maybe the FSB?…Some other political orgs from Gaza? or Turkey?

Or, perhaps they are just a bunch of hackers who like the cause celebre of hacktivism? It’s hard to say really, but, when you get China into the mix, the lines blur very very fast.

Below I am outlining the data I collected on the main inj3ct0r site, its owner, and two of the players who are on both teams of hackers that span China and Russian hacking. This makes for a new wrinkle in the Anonymous/Lulz movement in that the NATO hack was claimed by someone using the name “Team Inj3ct0r” and this site seems to fit the bill as the source of the attack since it has been quoted by the hackers that they used 0day on the NATO server to crack it and keep access. If indeed there are connections to state sponsored hacking (as the China connection really does lead me to believe) then we have a new problem, or perhaps this has been the case all along that the state sponsored hackers have been within Anonymous, using them as cover.

Another interesting fact is the decision to attack NATO. Was it a hack of opportunity? Or was there a political motive here? As I have seen that these groups are multi-national, perhaps this attack had a overall political agenda in that NATO is supposed to be the worlds policeman. I am still unsure.

Teams and Members:

In looking at the sites and the members, it came to light that two members belong to each of the teams (inj3ct0r and DIS9) The two are “knockout” and “Kalashinkov3″ The teams are tied together in the way they present their pages and the data they mirror so it is assumed that they have a greater connection underneath. In fact, more of them may be working together without being named in the teams listed below. Each of these people have particular skills and finding 0day and posting them to this site and others for others to use.

Team Inj3ct0r: http://77.120.120.218/team

Team Inj3ct0r’s site is located in Ukraine and is registered to a Matt Farrell (mr.r0073r@gmail.com) My assumption is that the name given as well as the address and phone numbers are just bogus as you can see they like to use the netspeak word “1337″ quite a bit. A secondary tip on this is that the name “Matt Farrel” is the character name for the hacker in “Live Free or Die Hard” Someone’s a fan…

Team Inj3ct0r

r0073r – r0073r is the founder of inj3ct0r and I believe is Russian. The site r0073r.com owned by Mr. Czeslaw Borski according to whois. However, a whois of inj3ctor.com comes up with a Anatoly Burdenko of 43 Moskow Moskovskaya Oblast RU. Email: e-c-h-0@mail.ru

• The domain r0073r.com owned by a Mr. Czeslaw Borski out of Gdansk Poland (another red herring name) domain hosted in Germany with a .ru name server
• The domain inj3ct0r.com created in 2008 belongs to Anatoly Burdenko and has been suspended
• The domain inject0r.com was hosted in China  61.191.0.0 – 61.191.255.255 on China net
• Another site confirms that r0073r is the founder of team inj3ct0r aka l33tday
• Another alias seems to be the screen name str0ke
• Also owned www.0xr00t.com

http://www.inj3ct0r.com domain details:

Registrant:
Inj3ct0r LTD
r0073r        (e-c-h-0@mail.ru)
Burdenko, 43
Moskow
Moskovskaya oblast,119501
RU
Tel. +7.4959494151
Creation Date: 13-Dec-2008
Expiration Date: 13-Dec-2013
Domain servers in listed order:
ns1.suspended-domain.com
ns2.suspended-domain.com
Administrative Contact:
Inj3ct0r LTD
r0073r        (e-c-h-0@mail.ru)
Burdenko, 43
Moskow
Moskovskaya oblast,119501
RU
Tel. +7.4959494151                     

Sid3^effectsr

4dc0reSeeMe

XroGuE

gunslinger_

indoushka
KnocKout

• knockout@e-mail.com.tr
• knockoutr@msn.com
• Alleged to be Turkish and located in Istanbul
• Member of the Turkish cyber warrior site cyber-warrior.org last access July 4rth 2011

ZoRLu
anT!-Tr0J4n
eXeSoul
KedAns-Dz
^Xecuti0n3r
Kalashinkov3

• Claims to be from Algeria
• kalashinkov3[at]Hotmail[dot]Fr
• http://internetblog.pl/tag/kalashinkov3/
• He’s a member of GazaHackers 

DIS9.com:

DIS9.com is a hacker group that is linked to and shares two members with Team Inj3ct0r (Kalashinkov3 and KnocKout) Both sites are very similar in design and content. DIS9.com resolves to an address in China and is registered to a YeAilin ostensibly out of Hunan Province in China. The owner/registrar of the site has a familiar email address of yeailin225@126.com also a domain registered and physically in China.

A Maltego of this data presents the following interesting bits: A connection to the site http://www.vi-xi.com a now defunct bbs which lists the yeailin225 account and other data like his QQ account. This site also lists another name attached to him: Daobanan ( 版主 )  vi-xi.com had hacking discussions that involved 0day as well. The domain of vi-xi.com was registered to jiang wen shuai with an email address of jwlslm@126.com and listed it out of Hunan Province.

The connections from DIS9 to other known hackers who are state actors was found within the Maltego maps and analogous Google searches. As yet, I am still collecting the data out there because there is so much of it. I have been inundated with links and user names, so once I have more detailed findings I will post them. Suffice to say though, that there is enough data here to infer that at the very least, hackers who work for the state in China are working with others on these two sites at the very least, sharing 0day and perhaps hacking together as newly branded “hactivists”

DIS9 Team:
Rizky Ariestiyansyah
Blackrootkit - 
Kedans-Dz

: Team Exploit :

Nick
Kalashinkov3
KnocKout
K4pt3N
Liquid
Backdoor Draft

h4x0er.org aka DIS9 Team

Another interesting fact is that a link to the site h4x0er.org itself shows that the DIS9 team is the umbrella org for Inj3ct0r and other teams. This is a common practice I have found with the Chinese hacking groups to have interconnected sites and teams working together. This looks to be the case here too, and I say this because of the Chinese connections that keep turning up in the domains, sites, and team members.

Other Teams within the DIS9 umbrella:

• ID Backtrack Team
• FreeBUF Team
• Inj3ct0r Team
• r0eXpeR Team
• Rsoul Team
• Vim0x0n
• Nuclear’Atk

In the end, it seems that there is more to the inj3ct0r team than just some random hackers and all of this data bears this out. I guess we will just have to wait and see what else they hit and determine what their agenda is.

More when I have it…

K.

Enemy of the State

Fort Meade has acres of mainframe computers underground. You're talking on the phone and you use the word, "bomb," "president," "Allah," any of a hundred key words, the computer recognizes it, automatically records it, red flags it for analysis; that was twenty years ago.

From The New Yorker; The Secret Sharer

The government argues that Drake recklessly endangered the lives of American servicemen. “This is not an issue of benign documents,” William M. Welch II, the senior litigation counsel who is prosecuting the case, argued at a hearing in March, 2010. The N.S.A., he went on, collects “intelligence for the soldier in the field. So when individuals go out and they harm that ability, our intelligence goes dark and our soldier in the field gets harmed.”

Top officials at the Justice Department describe such leak prosecutions as almost obligatory. Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General who supervises the department’s criminal division, told me, “You don’t get to break the law and disclose classified information just because you want to.” He added, “Politics should play no role in it whatsoever.”

Politics should play no role whatsoever? Really? This man is delusional to think that the statement, albeit correct, is actually factual. Of course politics play a part in such prosecutions, and case in point, this article cites examples of people getting slaps on the hand for breaking the espionage act and others where TS/S documents are concerned. The reasons that these others were not prosecuted to the full extent of the law was exactly because of politics and their entanglements. No Mr. Breuer, politics do play a role all too often.

That said, I encourage you all to read the full article and judge for yourselves just what happened with the case against Mr. Drake. It is my understanding from other sources as well as the New Yorker piece, that Drake was seeking to show waste on a grand scale while others were motivated by the idea that the sweeping changes to US law and oversight within the espionage area had taken a deep turn for the un-constitutional. This is an assessment that I agree with and have seen even more such dark turns lately where the digital realm is concerned. Frankly, at times I am a bit scared of the access and perhaps excess that the changes in the law have allowed for the NSA as well as anyone with enough juice within the newly minted security infrastructure post 9/11.

Constitutional Law vs. Technological Ease of Access vs. Political Agendas:

When the Constitution was created none of the technologies at play today were even a dream for the makers. Today though, the ideas of privacy, unreasonable search and seizure, and the fundamental freedoms we claim to cherish so much have been blurred. The blame for this rests partly on the technology, but mostly on the people who should be monitoring their system of laws. After 9/11 the people became all too trusting of the government to take care of them and all too willing to accept the over-reaches that they knew of while they were kept in the dark about others.

Case in point would be the FISA and warrantless wiretap situation that the Bush administration put into play after the terrorist attacks. It was the belief of the administration and the law enforcement community (certain factions) that too much time was lost to entering FISA warrants and getting approvals. So, instead they began to draft opinions that said the process was too ponderous, all the while they were putting together a secret process to just bypass the FISA altogether with or without the legal status to do so. This then begat the further access programs that essentially placed a tap on ALL communications going in and out of the backbone of the internet with the NARUS systems in the MAE’s around the country.

Since the technology was there, and it could be placed into a position to audit everything, they just said let’s do it. Thus, all traffic that you or I create over the Internet has the potential of being captured, flagged, and audited by someone at Ft. Meade without a warrant to do so. This also includes the cell phones as well because that traffic too passes through the same backbone system. Like the image of Brill above states;

Fort Meade has acres of mainframe computers underground. You’re talking on the phone and you use the word, “bomb,” “president,” “Allah,” any of a hundred key words, the computer recognizes it, automatically records it, red flags it for analysis; that was twenty years ago.

Brill, a character from Enemy of the State, was going on about this in a film out before the attacks on the US. It would seem that if the technology had not already been in place then, the administration took a cue from the film and made it a reality after the twin towers came down. After all, the enemy could be anyone and the US populace wanted an action hero to take on the bad men and win. The same people though, did not seem to understand that to do so, the administration would take the shortcut of bypassing decades of laws set in place to protect our freedoms from excessive powers that the Bush administration wanted to have to ‘protect’ us.

It was this over-stepping of the laws that others within the story at The New Yorker had begun to tell to the Sun reporter and who now are being pursued by an alleged non political NSA and government for calling them on their breaking of the law. Just as much as Mr. Drake was seeking to show that the waste created by Trailblazer could also tie into the misuse of ThinThread’s code to eavesdrop on anyone.

Both of these concerns are shared by me as well. After all, with the technology in place and without the oversight, how do we know that abuses aren’t happening? The NSA is famously known to tell the Senate oversight committee to go pound sand… So, who is really watching the watchers?

Right Versus Wrong and Speaking Truth To Power; Do We Have A Say Anymore?:

So, if you have access to classified materials and programs and you see that things have gone off the rails how can you expect to report on it to the authorities and not be prosecuted? It used to be that there were protections, but, it seems now post 9/11 that changes to the paradigms of classification and the re-interpretation of the law to suit the state, it has become increasingly impossible to whistle blow and not be prosecuted. What’s more, if you decide to report, the data that you are reporting on may be classified to the extent that it cannot even be used in open court or with your non cleared lawyer because it may be deemed too sensitive.

The net effect is that if there is malfeasance going on it may be impossible to report it and not get yourself into dire legal trouble with the current whistle blowing legislation on the books. This makes it even easier for the state and or entities and parties within its infrastructure to not abide by the law and have little to fear of oversight or speaking truth to power.

Sheeple vs. The Informed and Worried:

Meanwhile, the populace may live their lives unaware of the capacities for the state to listen to them and or present evidence gathered on them in an extra-legal way. At the very least, due to the wider interpretation of the law, it is easier for the state to gather and use evidence in ways that were not possible before because of the latitudes given post the Bush administration.

From a privacy perspective and the expectation thereof, the idea that all traffic is being hoovered up by the state is kind of scary. From a constitutional law perspective, you have the right to privacy in your papers and your domicile. Does this actually apply to digital papers, computers, hard drives, and anything you pass over telco lines to the cloud? Or is it considered public domain like your trash being placed at the end of your driveway?

This is an important precedent and should be considered with every email, IM, and call you make today. Just as well, if you are intent on retaining your privacy, what are the ways to do so now that all of these lines of communication are monitored by the state? One also has to determine just how worried they should be about intrusion into their privacy. After all, today we as a people give up a lot of information on ourselves at sites like Facebook and if we do that, just how much privacy can we expect?

Following that thought process, if we give up our privacy so easily how can we make an argument against the changes to the FISA rules as well as other laws where eavesdropping on our daily digital lives are concerned?

I for one do not want all of my conversations recorded for someone else to audit whether or not I may have said or done something that could be construed as illegal or perhaps pique the interests of the fed. Of course today one could easily be stopped in some states for alleged traffic violations and be asked if they could clone your phone data… Just because.

Whistle Blowing… Not So Much:

I guess in the end that the state of affairs today leans heavily toward the government being able to pretty much do what it wants to. From the warrantless wiretaps to the detention of non combatants, we have quite an inheritance from 9/11 and the Bush years. Unfortunately much of what President Obama had pledged he would roll back from those years have instead been re-approved if not enhanced. Add the whole Wikileaks debacle and now you have an even more reflexive and paranoid government trying to over classify everything and getting really bent when things get out.

So, the idea of whistle blowing I think is pretty much a dead one from here on. If anyone sees wrongdoing going on then they probably will let it go for fear that they will be prosecuted into oblivion.

And then the state wins… There have to be checks and balances.

K.

Rumblings On Stuxnet’s Potential for A Chernobyl Style Incident at Bushehr

 

A source called me over the weekend and alluded to some intel concerning the Bushehr nuclear plant with regard to Stuxnet. Of course you all out there are probably sick of hearing about Stuxnet (especially the infosec/IW community) but, I thought this was interesting and should drop a post. My source says that certain people in the know are worried about the whole stuxnet operation from the point of view that it was released into systems that, to the creators of the operation, were not completely understood. That is to say that Iran, being as hard to get intel on, may have had configurations or issues that the creators and implementors of Stuxnet did not account for and could indeed have caused a larger catastrophe with the malware.

This is now making the rounds quietly in certain areas of the media, but, I want to call your attention to this article that I found on payvand.com. In it, a nuclear expert speaks about the potential for a nuclear accident due to the design specs of the reactor at Bushehr and the fact that the Russians reported that they were removing the nuclear material from the reactor recently.

From: Dr. Sadeq Rabbani, Former Deputy of the Nuclear Energy Organization

The Russians claim that they were obliged to remove the fuel from the Bushehr nuclear reactor in order to replace a part that was installed during the time the Germans were managing the construction of the plant. It should be noted that according to the contract with Russia for construction of the Bushehr plant, the Russians replaced all inner parts of the reactor and presented a new design. In the German model, a vertical design was used, but the Russians adopted the horizontal model. This means that the created problem was not related to the inner parts of the German-designed reactor.

So the Russians were paid for the construction of the Bushehr reactor and have also changed the design. Now the problem is whether the Russians were wrong in their design. It is unlikely that the Russians were wrong in their design, because this is not the first plant that they have constructed, and their experience is valuable.

There remains only the Stuxnet virus that Iran denies has been able to affect the Bushehr facilitates. So, if we assume that the Iranian authorities are right, the Russians are playing with us by delaying the launch of the Bushehr plant, and want to continue to delay launching it.

My source, who has connections with various people in the know, says that there is a higher potential that since the German design and build was overtaken by the Russians, that they may in fact have introduced flaws within the system that “could” lead to a Chernobyl style event if something like Stuxnet had infected other PLC systems. Of course this is a blanket concern with malware on the level of Stuxnet anyway is it not? Of course, Stuxnet was particularly targeted to the Siemens systems for enrichment but, there is always a chance of undesired effects to potentially other systems.

This is not to say that there have been or are other systems that have been compromised by Stuxnet… That we know of.

Ostensibly, Stuxnet was aimed at the weapons facilities but, one must not think that the weapons facilities and the nuclear power program were kept apart by a firewall, for the lack of a better term. I am willing to bet that the two are connected both semantically as well as functionally, and in that, the systems that play a key role may have too. IF Stuxnet travelled to the Bushehr systems, what ‘could’ be the import here? Just as well, what would the design of the reactor play as a part to hastening a large nuclear accident?

The article above goes on to say that Dr. Rabbani does not believe that the design and implementation of the Bushehr reactor is likely to cause an issue. Others though have been saying the opposite. Including my source. All that is really known at this point are the following things;

• When Stuxnet hit Iran claimed that they were just fine! However, reports internally at the nuclear facilities and universities proved otherwise. That the malware was running rampant and they were trying and failing to exterminate it.

• The design and implementation of the nuclear reactor had been started by the Germans (Siemens) and then stopped for many years. Then the Russians picked up where the Germans left off. It is possible that the design changes and or builds on to previous versions could have flaws in them that might make for vulnerabilities.

• The Russians have removed the nuclear materials and the program is steadily losing ground to delay.

All in all, the unforeseen circumstances of malware like Stuxnet may indeed have caused issues at Bushehr, or, they could have been a calculated thing. Perhaps this is just Iran being careful out of paranoia as fallout from the incident. In either scenario, we win out in that the programs are being delayed. However, the worry that my source intoned was that they may not have considered the possibilities of collateral damage and just how bad they could be if the reactor had gone online and melted down. Of course, this is after seeing everything that is happening in Fukushima, so it’s on many minds.

My source went on to ask the question; “This would have to have a presidential order wouldn’t it as an operation?” The answer to that is yes. It is also quite likely that this operation was set forth by the previous administration (Bush) and, well, we know just how well thought out that presidency was huh? To my source, I say be careful in speaking about this. To all of you out there reading this I say keep your eyes peeled, there’s bound to be more fallout.

K.