Category Archives: NATO

Anti-NATO disinformation effort uses coronavirus to poke political tensions

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A propaganda campaign is using the coronavirus pandemic to inflame anxieties about NATO troops throughout Eastern Europe, security researchers have determined. The group, dubbed Ghostwriter, has been focused on amplifying anti-Western narratives in Poland, Latvia and Lithuania since 2017. Operatives have planted fabricated diplomatic documents, tried spreading the false narrative that Canadian soldiers had been spreading COVID-19 through Latvia and leveraged news sites to spread articles that appear to be legitimate, according to a report the security firm FireEye published Tuesday. While researchers have not attributed the effort to the Russian government, the findings are the latest addition to a growing consensus that pro-Kremlin entities are seizing on COVID-19 to inflame existing political divisions. Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, is using three websites to try to spread disinformation about the U.S. response to the virus, U.S. officials told the Associated Press. “We believe the assets and operations…are for the […]

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Poland implicates Russia in cyberattack, info op aimed at undercutting U.S. relations

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Polish security services on Thursday suggested the Russian government could be behind a cyberattack against an elite Polish military academy and an ensuing effort to undermine U.S.-Polish relations. Stanislaw Zaryn, a spokesman for Minister-Special Services Coordinator, which oversees Polish security agencies, announced that hackers had breached the website of Poland’s War Studies University. The attack was followed by a disinformation campaign, Zaryn said, in which attackers posted a letter where the head of the university purportedly described the U.S. troop presence in Poland as an “American occupation.” The fake letter was picked up by at least three Polish websites, one with a history of pushing disinformation, Polish officials said. Poland’s government did not conclusively blame the Russian government for the information operation. However,  Zaryn said the effort, apparently meant to sow discord between the U.S. and a key ally in Central Europe, would be “congruent with disinformation activities carried out by the Russian Federation against Poland.” “Poland’s special services are […]

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Pentagon’s next cyber policy guru predicts more collective responses in cyberspace

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State-sponsored cyberattacks against just one victim nation at a time could soon provoke a global response, if a growing number of officials around the world have their way. As the Pentagon has experimented with new authorities allowing U.S. Cyber Command to be more offensive in cyberspace, key officials have suggested there is a groundswell of support for multi-nation countermeasures in the digital age. Thomas Wingfield, the incoming deputy assistant secretary of Defense for cyber policy, told CyberScoop that alliances could be a more successful way to deter hackers and strike back when they infiltrate sensitive networks. “I think that’s a more effective way to solve the problem, and I think that is the general [direction] of international law,” said Wingfield, who is still employed at National Defense University. “But I would also say we’re not there yet and states are in the process of moving international law in that direction.” For months now, the U.S. […]

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Darknet hosting provider in underground NATO bunker busted

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Police overcame not only digital defenses of the “bulletproof” provider CyberBunker but also barbed wire fences and surveillance cams. Continue reading Darknet hosting provider in underground NATO bunker busted→

U.S. Secretary of Defense urges NATO allies to block Chinese-built 5G tech

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is calling on allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to bar Chinese companies from developing 5G networks there, reiterating an American argument that largely has failed to convince European countries to blacklist telecommunication firms with ties to Beijing. Esper, in a speech Thursday at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency summit in Maryland, said “every Chinese company has the potential to be an accomplice in Beijing’s state-sponsored campaign to steal technology.” His remarks came amid a standoff between Washington and Beijing in which the Chinese telecom Huawei has become the subject of geopolitical scrutiny while it also lobbies nations around the world to help build 5G wireless networks. Esper in his speech warned NATO allies that using 5G networks developed by Chinese companies “jeopardizes military interoperability and intelligence sharing opportunities.” “The U.S. military does not fight alone,” he said. “Just like the other […]

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“All for One and One for All”

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… So chanted the Three Musketeers. One of my main issues with cybersecurity risk management is that organizations seek to secure their own systems, data and networks, hoping that attackers will move on and attack more vulnerable victims. I have h… Continue reading “All for One and One for All”→

NATO cyber-operations center will be leaning on its members for offensive hacks

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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s cyber-operations command center in Belgium still has a ways to go before its offensive playbook is set in stone, a NATO cyber official involved in the matter told CyberScoop. The Cyberspace Operations Centre was established almost exactly one year ago, in Mons, Belgium to help member nations’ obtain real-time intelligence on and respond to cyberthreats from criminal or nation-state backed hackers. The alliance is still working on pooling member nations’ offensive cyber capabilities for those responses, Deputy Director of the Cyberspace Operations Centre Group Captain Neal Dewar told CyberScoop in an interview. The cyber operations center was created in part to fulfill the alliance’s 2016 decision that under NATO’s Article V, a cyberattack on one member nation may result in a group of members coming to its defense, just as if a physical attack had occurred. But because the alliance does not have its own […]

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Cyber Command’s midterm election work included trips to Ukraine, Montenegro, and North Macedonia

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As part of its work to protect the 2018 U.S. midterm elections from foreign hackers and trolls, Cyber Command personnel visited Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Ukraine to collaborate on network defense with those allies and study cyberthreats, U.S. officials confirmed to CyberScoop. The trip to Europe demonstrates how the command, which has grown in stature and capability since its 2009 inception, supports and learns from allies facing threats from persistent hackers. “We sent defensive teams… to three different European countries,” Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of Cyber Command, told a House Armed Services subcommittee on Wednesday. Nakasone did not name the countries. But a Cyber Command spokesperson said two of those countries were the Balkan nations of Montenegro and North Macedonia, which until February was known as Macedonia. And a U.S. government official with knowledge of the matter said the third country was Ukraine – something corroborated by a public statement […]

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Poland calls for NATO, EU action on Huawei technology

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Polish government officials have asked the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to decide whether both alliances should exclude Huawei’s technology from certain global markets. Poland’s internal affairs minister, Joachim Brudziński, on Saturday told the Polish radio station RMF FM the EU and NATO should work together to form a joint position on whether to allow the continued use of equipment made by the Chinese telecommunication company. Brudziński’s recommendation came after Polish authorities arrested Huawei’s head of sales in Poland, Wang Weijing, and a former Polish intelligence agent on espionage charges. Those arrests came amid ongoing international scrutiny over Huawei, which Western security officials have said acts as a wing of the Chinese government and could represent a threat to national security. The firm provides technology for mobile phones, internet networks and telecommunication infrastructure throughout the world. Huawei has consistently denied any wrongdoing. “There are concerns about Huawei […]

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Newsmaker Interview: Derek Manky on ‘Self-Organizing Botnet Swarms’

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Botnets fused with artificial intelligence are decentralized and self-organized systems, capable of working together toward a common goal – attacking networks. Continue reading Newsmaker Interview: Derek Manky on ‘Self-Organizing Botnet Swarms’→