Cybersecurity & Espionage Articles
https://www.dhra.mil/perserec/espionage-cases/
Since its first publication in 1985 as Recent Espionage Cases, this product (download) has offered the security educator easy-to-find factual information about espionage-related cases for use in briefings, newsletters, and other educational media. This new edition, issued by the Defense Personnel Security Research Center (PERSEREC), supplements the collection of case summaries with 20 new entries, and updates and expands previous accounts for which we now have more complete information. With this July 2009 edition, we have changed the title to Espionage and Other Compromises of National Security: Case Summaries from 1975 to 2008 in order to more accurately reflect the range and type of events summarized here. Our goal is the enhancement of security awareness among cleared employees and military service members by showing that espionage involves real people in workplace situations like their own and that loyal and conscientious employees continue to be the target of attempts by agents of foreign intelligence services to recruit them as sources of sensitive defense and intelligence information. These case summaries bear little resemblance to the glamorized fictional accounts of spy novels; rather, they tell mundane tales of human folly resulting in tragic personal consequences. Cases can be accessed in three ways: by date of arrest, name of the offender, and organization on which or from which information was taken. Click below on the desired means of access.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/china-harvests-masses-of-data-on-western-targets-documents-show/2021/12/31/3981ce9c-538e-11ec-8927-c396fa861a71_story.html
China is turning a major part of its internal Internet-data surveillance network outward, mining Western social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to equip its government agencies, military and police with information on foreign targets, according to a Washington Post review of hundreds of Chinese bidding documents, contracts and company filings. China maintains a countrywide network of government data surveillance services — called public opinion analysis software — that were developed over the past decade and are used domestically to warn officials of politically sensitive information online. The software primarily targets China’s domestic Internet users and media, but a Post review of bidding documents and contracts for over 300 Chinese government projects since the beginning of 2020 include orders for software designed to collect data on foreign targets from sources such as Twitter, Facebook and other Western social media. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-defense-contractor-arrested-attempted-espionage
A South Dakota man was arrested last night in Lead, South Dakota, on criminal charges related to his alleged espionage attempts. According to court documents, John Murray Rowe Jr., 63, of Lead, attempted to provide classified national defense information to the Russian government. According to the complaint, Rowe, who is originally from Massachusetts, was employed for nearly 40 years as a test engineer for multiple cleared defense contractors. In connection with his employment, Rowe held various national security clearances from SECRET to TOP SECRET//SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) and worked on matters relating to the U.S. Air Force’s aerospace technology, among other things. After committing a number of security violations and revealing a fervent interest in Russian affairs, including whether he could obtain a security clearance from the Russian government, Rowe was identified as a potential insider threat and terminated from employment. Based on his conduct, FBI began an undercover operation to determine Rowe’s willingness to communicate classified information to a foreign government. In March 2020, Rowe met with an undercover FBI employee who posed as an agent of the Russian government. Over the course of the next eight months, Rowe exchanged over 300 emails with the purported Russian agent, confirming his willingness to work for the Russian government and discussing his knowledge of classified information relating to U.S. national security and military interests. In one email, Rowe explained, “If I can’t get a job here then I’ll go work for the other team.” In another email, Rowe disclosed national defense information classified as SECRET that concerned specific operating details of the electronic countermeasure systems used by U.S. military fighter jets. Rowe is charged with attempting to communicate national defense information to aid a foreign government and will make his initial court appearance in the District of South Dakota on Friday. If convicted, he faces a maximum statutory penalty of life in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-16/chinese-spies-accused-of-using-huawei-in-secret-australian-telecom-hack
The U.S. government has warned for years that products from China’s Huawei Technologies Co., the world’s biggest maker of telecommunications equipment, pose a national security risk for any countries that use them. As Washington has waged a global campaign to block the company from supplying state-of-the-art 5G wireless networks, Huawei and its supporters have dismissed the claims as lacking evidence. Now a Bloomberg News investigation has found a key piece of evidence underpinning the U.S. efforts — a previously unreported breach that occurred halfway around the world nearly a decade ago. A recent spy case shows how China has been able to pull off its whirlwind military modernization12/12/2021 https://www.businessinsider.com/recent-spy-case-shows-how-industrial-espionage-helps-chinese-military-2021-12
A historic court decision sheds light on how China has used espionage to gain a military and economic advantage over the US and the rest of the world. US counterintelligence officials managed to lure Yanjun Xu, a senior Chinese intelligence officer, out of China in 2018 and then get him extradited to the US to stand trial for attempting to steal advanced aircraft-engine technology, which China's military has struggled to develop. This case is only the latest in a series of espionage operations by Beijing meant to steal industrial and military secrets from the US and its allies and partners and even from Russia — theft that has allowed China's military to rapidly build its arsenals of sophisticated weapons. https://www-csoonline-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.csoonline.com/article/3643650/ubiquiti-breach-an-inside-job-says-fbi-and-doj.amp.html
Investigators claim Ubiquiti employee Nikolas Sharp stole company data and then played the role of whistleblower to draw attention away from is actions. |
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