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Posts tagged ‘Cyber Security’

NYT: Obama WH Rushed to Preserve Russian Hacking Intel


waving flag disclaimerAuthored by NEWSMAX Wednesday, 01 Mar 2017 09:19 PM

URL of the original posting site: http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/hacking-intelligence-White-House-administration/2017/03/01/id/776413/

Image: NYT: Obama WH Rushed to Preserve Russian Hacking Intel / Former President Barack Obama (AP Photo)

White House officials scrambled in the final days of the Obama administration to spread information across the government about Russian meddling in the election — and possible contacts between Trump associates and Russians, The New York Times reported.

The effort was to thwart any future meddling, and to leave a “clear trail of intelligence for government investigators,” the Times reported.leading-propaganda-generator

According to the Times, the information included that from American allies, including the British and the Dutch, describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin – and Trump associates, the Times reported, citing three unnamed former American officials.

Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates, the Times reported.

According to the Times, some people in the Obama White House worried the intelligence could be covered up or destroyed — or its sources exposed — once power changed hands. The Times reported the push by intelligence agencies aimed to process as much raw intelligence as possible into analyses, and to keep the reports at a relatively low level of classification to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government — and, in some cases, among European allies.

“This allowed the upload of as much intelligence as possible to Intellipedia, a secret wiki used by American intelligence analysts to share information,” the Times reported.words-of-a-leftist-propagandist

White House spokesman Sean Spicer responded, “The only new piece of information that has come to light is that political appointees in the Obama administration have sought to create a false narrative to make an excuse for their own defeat in the election.” “There continues to be no there, there.”

The FBI is conducting an investigation into Russia meddling in the election, and separately, the House and Senate intelligence committees are conducting their own probes.

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We Are On Notice: Terrorists Target Grids


by Frank Gaffney27 Jan 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/27/we-are-on-notice-terrorists-target-grids/

Reuters

Reuters

On Sunday, jihadists attacked a main power line in Pakistani Balochistan’s Naseerabad district. As a result, 140 million Pakistanis were left in the dark and two nuclear power plants were knocked off line. This is but the latest incident in which hostile forces used sabotage to take down parts of an electrical infrastructure. Others include:

  • In the early hours of the morning on April 16, 2013, a highly professional commando-style assault took place on Pacific Gas & Electric’s Metcalf substation near San Jose, California. As many as twenty-one effectively irreplaceable high-voltage transformers were very nearly destroyed. Had that occurred, Silicon Valley and much of the San Francisco Bay area could have been without power for protracted periods, possibly for years. The yet-to-be-identified attackers got away and must be assumed to be still at large.
  • On October 27, 2013, the Knights Templar drug gang struck and disrupted the grid of Mexico’s Michoacan State. 
  • On June 9, 2014, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) used mortars and rockets to attack the national grid of Yemen by destroying transmission towers. It was the first time that a terrorist attack resulted in an entire country being blacked-out. 

In addition, there have been a number of incidents in which hackers believed to be associated with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran have demonstrated the capability to use cyber techniques to penetrate and potentially to exercise destructive control over critical infrastructures like electric grids.

In addition, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) has observed that a recently translated Iranian doctrinal statement makes reference in twenty different places to the use of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to attack that nation’s enemies. The Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans similarly regard EMP as simply a type of cyberwarfare, to be employed offensively against their enemies, including this country.

It appears that official Washington has finally begun to pay attention to the vulnerability of the U.S. electric grid. Notably, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Cyber-security, Congressman Patrick Meehan (R-PA) hinted that the December 2014 North Korean cyber attack on Sony could portend that the United States’ critical infrastructure could be its next target. He observed:

American businesses, financial networks, government agencies and infrastructure systems like power grids are at continual risk. They’re targeted not just by lone hackers and criminal syndicates, but by well-funded nation-states like North Korea and Iran. A lack of consequences for when nation states carry out cyberattacks has only emboldened these adversaries to do more harm.

Even if no jihadist or other terrorist, hacker or hostile nation tries to disrupt our most critical of critical infrastructures via one technique or another, we still have to “harden” the grid. After all, we are overdue for the sort of intense solar storm that occurs roughly every 150 years. And when it hits, by one estimate issued by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 130 million Americans will be without power for years. Needless to say, most of those affected will perish before the lights come back on.

Fortunately, on December 1, 2014 in what may have been the only laudable action to come out of the lame duck session, the House of Representatives took a small, but important, step to address the vulnerability of the U.S. bulk power distribution system. It unanimously approved the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA), a bill that requires the Department of Homeland Security to develop a plan for protecting the grid against solar weather, cyber attack, EMP and more. Rep. Meehan co-sponsored this legislation, along with its lead sponsors, Reps. Franks and Pete Sessions (R-TX).

With the new Congress, the CIPA bill will have to start from scratch – as would any other legislation designed to achieve grid resiliency on the more accelerated basis that is needed in the face of the aforementioned human-induced and naturally occurring threats to the grid. Still, the elevation of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) to the chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and his commitment and that of his House counterpart, Rep. Michael McCaul, to swift action on CIPA is heartening. 

But will it be in time?

Freedom with Prayer

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China Flight Tests New Stealth Jet During Obama Visit


BY: ; November 11, 2014

URL of Original Posting Site: http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-flight-tests-new-stealth-jet-during-obama-visit/

“White House calls on China to halt cyber espionage”

China’s military upstaged the Asian economic summit in Beijing this week by conducting flights tests of a new stealth jet prototype, as the White House called on Beijing to halt its cyber attacks. Demonstration flights by the new J-31 fighter jet—China’s second new radar-evading warplane—were a key feature at a major arms show in Zhuhai, located near Macau, on Monday. The J-31 flights coincided with President Obama’s visit to Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting. In a speech and meetings with Chinese leaders, Obama called on China to curtail cyber theft of trade secrets. China obtained secrets from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter through cyber attacks against a subcontractor for Lockheed Martin. The technology has shown up in China’s first stealth jet, the J-20, and in the J-31. Both of the jets’ design features and equipment are similar to those of the F-35. The Chinese warplanes are part of a major buildup of air power by China that includes the two new stealth fighters, development of a new strategic bomber, purchase of Russian Su-35 jets, and development of advanced air defense missile systems. China also is building up its conventional and nuclear missile forces.inyourface

Meanwhile, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Beijing Tuesday that the president would press China’s leader Xi Jinping to curb Chinese cyber espionage.

“Cybersecurity, of course, will be an important focus for the president, given some of our concerns related to cybersecurity and the theft of intellectual property,” Rhodes said in advance of Obama’s meeting Tuesday with Xi.Cybersecurity

Rhodes defended the Justice Department’s May 1 indictment of five Chinese military hackers that prompted Beijing to cut off talks on cyber issues. “When we see things on cyber security where we have Chinese actions that disadvantage U.S. businesses or steal intellectual property, we’re going to be very candid about that,” he said.

Obama also was to discuss military exchanges with China that have been put in jeopardy by recent incidents involving threatening Chinese aerial and naval intercepts of U.S. surveillance aircraft and ships in the South China Sea.

“It’s incredibly important that we avoid inadvertent escalation and that we don’t find ourselves having an accidental circumstance lead into something that could precipitate conflict,” Rhodes said.

In a speech Monday in Beijing, Obama said he wants China to become a state that “rejects cybertheft of trade secrets for commercial gain.”want

The J-31 flight testing during the summit highlights the Chinese military’s use of high-level U.S. visits to showcase new weaponry.

Military and defense analysts said China’s development of new warplanes poses a threat to regional stability.

“China is moving along at a very rapid pace in its fighter aircraft development and we should be concerned,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, who said the timing during the president’s visit was similar to the 2011 flight test of the J-20 during a visit by then Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

McInerney said Gates halted production of the most advanced U.S. jet fighter, the F-22, at 187 aircraft that “started us on the unilateral disarmament path that President Obama has America on.”

“Neither the J-20 or the J-31 will match the F-22 or F-35 in stealth performance but their Really with logosuccessors will and we should be concerned as China is a looming economic and military power,” McInerney said. “They enjoy flaunting their power in front of American leaders who have exhibited weakness.”

In January 2011, China rolled out the J-20 for the first time during the visit to Beijing by Gates, who wrote in his recent memoir, Duty, that one of his aides called China’s timing for the J-20 disclosure “about as big a ‘f–k you’ as you can get.”

Rick Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said the J-31 prototype flight at Zhuhai shows a high degree of confidence on the part of the manufacturer, the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation.

“But Shenyang has also displayed a large model of an advanced development of the J-31, that it calls the FC-31,” he said. “The FC-31 shows key design refinements intended to increase platform stealth, or to increase radar reflectivity. These include new horizontal stabilizers, reshaped wings, and a revised rear fuselage area.”

The new advanced version of the jet also will include an electro-optical targeting device under its nose that is very similar to the F-35 targeting unit.

Fisher said the Chinese appear to intend the J-31 for foreign exports and to compete with foreign sales of the F-35 by offering it at a much lower price.

“The FC-31 gains points for a cleaner low observable configuration than the F-35.  What we do not know at this point is how their electronic systems compare.  While we might give the edge to the F-35 we also have to consider that China is rapidly developing similarly capable radar, targeting systems, and cockpit systems.’

“The J-31 also is expected to be launched on future Chinese aircraft carriers that will be equipped with catapult launch.’

“Fisher said the main challenge for the new jet is its engines, which are Russian-made turbofans. “China is now testing an indigenous turbofan for this fighter, but it is not known when it will be ready,” he said.

“But these are small obstacles, especially if Russia will continue to sell Shenyang the engines it requires,” Fisher said. “The FC-31 could become a military and a commercial threat to the F-35. Its well past time to be investing in a much better F-35 as well as a successor to the F-22.”

Li Yuhai, a general manager with the Aviation Industry of China, parent company of Shenyang Aviation, told the state-run Global Times that the J-31 is comparable to the F-35 and will change the status quo by taking a lead role in the aircraft export market.

“Our fourth generation fighter can now compete with foreign fighters,” Li said.

The J-31 was first flight tested in 2012 and has completed at least six aerial tests.

In addition to the J-31, China also showcased a new Y-20 transport aircraft that is a key element of China’s new effort to develop long-range warfighting capabilities. Another aircraft that debuted at Zhuhai was the KJ-2000, a new airborne early warning and control aircraft with technology critical for advanced warfighting.

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