Cyber Scene #26 - INFO WAR OF THE WORDS

Cyber Scene #26

INFO WAR OF THE WORDS

The Wellness Factor: Wells, Welles or Orwell?

History does repeat itself. The “War of the Worlds” broadcast on CBS radio on 30 October 1938 celebrates its 80th anniversary. As this readership was unlikely to have heard the broadcast, the storyline deals with an intergalactic alien invasion of the U.S. which much of the listening audience assumed was real. Today the multifaceted media, which in the past provided us with verifiable information, has been tainted by the infusion of fake news, trolls, hackers, and other alien invaders and purveyors of misinformation, not for theatrical effect but more nefarious intent.

Cyber Scene has probed many of these instances before, but the scope, intensity, and sophistication of attacks revealed over the last month is chilling. They range from concerns at one extreme about divisive Internet Research Agency tweets regarding the famous NFL national anthem non-fair catch “knee-taking” (nor associated with a “Hail Mary” or the genuflection in mathematician/songster/Army signals analyst Tom Lehr’s refrain in “Vatican Rag”). (“WSJ 22 October “Trolls Fueled Controversy”). At the other extreme, there is justifiable concern about the upcoming midterm elections. If the Russian intelligence service cared enough about National Football League activities to invest an effort in using them as a wedge in the upcoming elections, the United States is a huge target.

States are taking action to provide backup systems to electronic voting. The New York Times Magazine of 26 September in an article entitled ”The Crisis of Elections Security” outlined the problems of the 2016 election stating that a failure at the ballot box was a failure of democracy. Also in mid-September the Wall Street Journal indicated that 13 states were “voting without net” as they had no paper backup system to the existing electrical one. As of 19 October, the New York Times editorial entitled "Elections Could Be Hacked, Vote Anyway notes that only five states remain unprotected by paper backups. The editorial referred to a test in April 2018 whereby Florida state election officials replicated their data; despite many upgrades to election machines, an 11 year old boy needed only 10 minutes to hack into the database. Russians have been seen as focusing 24/7, 365 days/yr. on hacking issues.

Vet Army Of One

The New York Times editorial called each of its readers to vote anyway, so too did one veteran take on another war--the war of disinformation (WSJ 17 October). Kris Goldsmith, age 33, who worked for Vietnam Veterans of America, discovered fake Facebook pages related to their interests. After being told by Facebook to contact the authors, Facebook agreed to delete the pages within two months. Mr. Goldsmith flagged Facebook pages with millions of followers "..targeting military personnel and veterans through patriotic messages and fomenting political divisions." Since then, two dozen additional pages which had 20 million followers were purged of Russian- and Iranian- linked disinformation campaigns. This success leads to the manager of FireEye, which tracks misinformation, establishing a conference call with Mr. Goldsmith, Facebook, and the House Intelligence Committee staffers and a subsequent meeting at Facebook's office in Washington.

Cyber Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy

As discussed in previous editions, the Chinese have been particularly engaged in hacking. Now however it appears that the Chinese themselves are being hacked beginning an Asian version of Boris and Natasha. On 2 October, Robert McMillan of the Wall Street Journal explored the problem facing cyberespionage experts as to who is exposing China’s hacking army. In the cyber world, holding ones cards closely is sometimes an advantage. However an anonymous group, Intrusion Truth, has itself intruded into state sponsored intrusion efforts. The playing field seems to be expanding.

Google Apps or Google Oops

For those users on the sidelines however, Google had bad news in October: hundreds of thousands of users of its social network Google+ had their private data exposed. Relatedly, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on 10 October to address this public disclosure to look to further regulatory scrutiny through bipartisancongressional action. The chairman John Thune (R., S.D.), called for a national standard on privacy. Senator Mark Warner (D., VA) expressed his concern about the understaffed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) being able to meet its challenge.

50,000,000 FB Users Can't Be Wrong(ed)!

Google has company: during the same time frame, Facebook disclosed the exposure by hackers of data of 50,000,000 users (NYT 28 September). These users included Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, whose work, appearing and not appearing, at congressional hearings, has been covered in earlier Cyber Scenes. Facebook has also moved forward to purge invalid photos and videos that have been linked to a collection effort by Russian actors. More than 60 accounts have been connected to facial recognition software makers for Russia. Both Google and Facebook fall under surveillance of the Federal Trade Commission.

Rounding Up Some of The Usual Suspects

Against this backdrop of gloom and doom there have been notable public successes. Several Russian bad actors have been named and indicted. Recently added to the list is Elena Alekseevna Krushyaynova of St. Petersburg (the Leningrad St. Pete), a close ally of Putin, who directed an info war against midterm elections in the U.S. She is also connected to the 13 Russians indicted in the Mueller-led investigation. Russia was also cited in the New York Times 23 October article in an attack with malicious computer code to control take control of a chemical plant safety shut-off system in Saudi Arabia. Russia has been accused of infrastructure attacks in the past.

Will the Real Investigator Please Stand Up

In a cyber game twist, the US, UK and Dutch caught Russians red-handed, so to speak, hacking the very global institutions that were in the process of investigating Russia (NYT 4 October). This occurred outside of the Mueller investigation, although 3 of the 7 were also indicted in July by the Mueller team. The attacks were world-wide and included British governmental agencies, FIFA and 250 athletes and the anti-doping organization investigating Russian athletes, and the agency in the Hague, O.P.C.W., investigating the use of Novichok in the attempted murder of the Skirpals in Salisbury. The success was an outgrowth of transatlantic collaboration.

Going Chinese: Brussels Sprouts an Extradition While the Allies Go Public

And little Belgium did its part as well, as Belgian authorities helped to make US history in arresting and then extraditing to the US a Chinese intelligence officer accused of stealing US avionic trade secrets. This international sting operation marks the first time an indictment, extradition and open trial will have occurred involving a Chinese intelligence officer. The Economist (13 October) offers its UK perspective, underscoring how unusual a spies' press conference conducted in the UK is. This time however, the British and Allies decided that the benefits of exposing the Kremlin outweighed the risk of tipping their own hands, a according to former UK National Security Adviser Sir Mark Lyall Grant.

CYBERCOM Takes Aim at Global Warming of Cold War

The transatlantic cybersecurity alliance successes above are also linked to success in keeping Russia from having an influential vote in US midterm elections. The post-WWII Fulda Gap has now transformed into a hot cybersecurity war. According to Julian E. Barnes of the NYT (23 October), the US is undertaking cyber operations in Europe to protect US elections in early November. This marks the first time, according to the Department of Justice, of information warfare involving cyberoperations overseas to counter Russian election threats. These are reportedly linked to Russian activities in Europe. CyberCom is said to be targeting specific individuals. This falls within the recent broadening of the Command's responsibilities. This redefinition has been advanced by both SecDef Mattis and National Security Advisor Bolton.