The Cia's Communications Suffered A Catastrophic Compromise. It Started Inward Iran.

Sometimes I think the United States intelligence community isn't every bit goodness every bit they state they are.

I receive got this film inwards my caput of that Peter Strozk swain inwards the Home for Retired Spooks amongst spy guys as well as gals from all around the world, Russians as well as Chinese as well as the Iranians as well as North Koreans as well as the British as well as the Germans as well as the Israelis as well as the Macedonians, all of 'em.

Now Strozk was a pretty large deal,  He was Chief of the Counterespionage Section of the FBI.
He was also the #2 of the entire FBI Counterintelligence Division.

And he left 50,000 text messages amongst his paramour, DOJ as well as FBI attorney Lisa Page, laying around.
50,000 squelch notes to sweetie-pie.
Right there, inwards the phone, on a server, where whatever junior-grade investigator could detect them.

And inwards my vision all the old spies spies as well as counter-spies are waiting for dinner as well as laughing at Strozk as well as reverting to childhood every bit the elderly are sometimes wont to produce as well as chanting, almost inwards unision:

"Peter as well as Lisa sitting inwards a tree, T-E-X-T-I-N-G..."

So, although the story below is well-nigh the CIA, it was 'ol FBI Pete who I idea of when I saw the article.

From Yahoo News, Nov 2:

In 2013, hundreds of CIA officers — many working nonstop for weeks — scrambled to comprise a disaster of global proportions: a compromise of the agency’s internet-based covert communications arrangement used to interact amongst its informants inwards nighttime corners around the world. Teams of CIA experts worked feverishly to receive got downward as well as reconfigure the websites secretly used for these communications; others managed operations to speedily spirit assets to security as well as oversaw other forms of triage.

“When this was going on, it was all that mattered,” said i one-time intelligence community official. 

The province of affairs was “catastrophic,” said some other one-time senior intelligence official.

From around 2009 to 2013, the United States intelligence community experienced crippling intelligence failures related to the surreptitious internet-based communications system, a fundamental way for remote messaging betwixt CIA officers as well as their sources on the terra firma worldwide. The previously unreported global occupation originated inwards Islamic Republic of Iran as well as spiderwebbed to other countries, as well as was left unrepaired — despite warnings well-nigh what was happening — until to a greater extent than than ii dozen sources died inwards Communist People's Republic of China inwards 2011 as well as 2012 every bit a result, according to 11 one-time intelligence as well as national security officials. 

The disaster ensnared every corner of the national security bureaucracy — from multiple intelligence agencies, congressional intelligence committees as well as independent contractors to internal authorities watchdogs — forcing a slow-moving, complex authorities machine to create produce amongst the deadly dangers of emerging technologies. 

In a Blue Planet where dependence on advanced engineering scientific discipline may live on a necessary evil for modern espionage, especially inwards hostile regions where American officials can’t operate freely, such technical failures are an e'er acquaint danger as well as volition alone move to a greater extent than needlelike amongst time.

“When these types of compromises happen, it’s therefore nighttime as well as bad,” said i one-time official. “They tin burrow in. It never actually ends.” 

A one-time senior intelligence official amongst direct cognition of the compromise said it had global implications for the CIA.  “You start thinking twice well-nigh people, from Communist People's Republic of China to Russian Federation to Islamic Republic of Iran to North Korea,” said the one-time official.  The CIA was worried well-nigh its network “totally unwinding worldwide.”

Yahoo News’ reporting on this global communications failure is based on conversations amongst 11 one-time United States intelligence as well as authorities officials straight familiar amongst the thing who requested anonymity to hash out sensitive operations. Multiple one-time intelligence officials said that the harm from the potential global compromise was serious — fifty-fifty catastrophic — as well as volition persist for years. 

More than simply a interrogation of a unmarried failure, the fiasco illustrates a breakdown that was never properly addressed. The government’s inability to address the communication system’s insecurities until after sources were rolled upwards inwards Communist People's Republic of China was disastrous. “We’re silent dealing amongst the fallout,” said i one-time national security official. “Dozens of people around the Blue Planet were killed because of this.”

*****

One of the largest intelligence failures of the past times decade started inwards Islamic Republic of Iran inwards 2009, when the Obama management announced the regain of a surreptitious Iranian subway scheme enrichment facility — part of Iran’s headlong drive for nuclear weapons. Angered well-nigh the breach, the Iranians went on a mole hunt, looking for unusual spies, said i one-time senior intelligence official.

The mole hunt wasn’t hard, inwards large part, because the communications arrangement the CIA was using to communicate amongst agents was flawed. Former United States officials said the internet-based platform, which was offset used inwards state of war zones inwards the Middle East, was non built to withstand the sophisticated counterintelligence efforts of a province musician similar Communist People's Republic of China or Iran. “It was never meant to live on used long term for people to speak to sources,” said i one-time official. “The number was that it was working good for likewise long, amongst likewise many people. But it was an uncomplicated system.”

“Everyone was using it far beyond its intention,” said some other one-time official.

The risks posed past times the arrangement appeared to receive got been overlooked inwards part because it was piece of cake to use, said the one-time intelligence officials. There is no foolproof way to communicate — especially amongst expediency as well as urgency — amongst sources inwards hostile environments similar Islamic Republic of Iran as well as China, noted the one-time officials. But a feel of confidence inwards the arrangement kept it inwards performance far longer than was prophylactic or advisable, said one-time officials. The CIA’s directorate of scientific discipline as well as technology, which is responsible for the secure communications system, “says, ‘our s***’s impregnable,’ but it’s plainly not,” said i one-time official.

By 2010, however, it appears that Islamic Republic of Iran had begun to position CIA agents. And past times 2011,  Iranian authorities dismantled a CIA spy network inwards that country, said vii one-time United States intelligence officials. (Indeed, inwards May 2011, Iranian intelligence officials announced publicly that they had broken upwards a band of xxx CIA spies; United States officials afterward confirmed the breach to ABC News, which also reported on a potential compromise to the communications system.)

Iran executed some of the CIA informants as well as imprisoned others inwards an intelligence setback that i of the one-time officials described every bit “incredibly damaging.” The CIA successfully exfiltrated some of its Iranian sources, said one-time officials.

The Iranian compromise led to significantly fewer CIA agents existence killed than inwards China, according to one-time officials. Still, the events at that spot hampered the CIA’s capacity to collect intelligence inwards Islamic Republic of Iran at a critical time, simply every bit Tehran was forging ahead amongst its nuclear program.

U.S. authorities believe Islamic Republic of Iran likely unwound the CIA’s property network analytically — pregnant they deduced what Washington knew well-nigh Tehran’s ain operations, as well as then identified Iranians who held that information, as well as eventually zeroed inwards on possible sources. This hunt for CIA sources eventually bore fruit — including the identification of the covert communications system.

A 2011 Iranian television set broadcast that touted the government’s devastation of the CIA network said United States intelligence operatives had created websites for mistaken companies to recruit agents inwards Islamic Republic of Iran past times promising them jobs, visas as well as didactics abroad. Iranians who initially idea they were responding to legitimate opportunities would halt upwards coming together amongst CIA officers inwards places similar Dubai or Istanbul for recruitment, according to the broadcast. 

Though the Iranians didn’t state exactly how they infiltrated the network, ii one-time United States intelligence officials said that the Iranians cultivated a double agent who led them to the surreptitious CIA communications system. This online arrangement allowed CIA officers as well as their sources to communicate remotely inwards hard operational environments similar Communist People's Republic of China as well as Iran, where in-person meetings are frequently dangerous.

A lack of proper vetting of sources may receive got led to the CIA inadvertently running a double agent, said i one-time senior official — a effect of the CIA’s pressing postulate at the fourth dimension to prepare highly placed agents within the Islamic Republic. After this betrayal, Israeli intelligence tipped off the CIA that Islamic Republic of Iran had probable identified some of its assets, said the same one-time official.

The losses could receive got stopped there. But United States officials believe Iranian intelligence was as well as then able to compromise the covert communications system. At the CIA, at that spot was “shock as well as awe” well-nigh the simplicity of the technique the Iranians used to successfully compromise the system, said i one-time official.

In fact, the Iranians used Google to position the website the CIA was using to communicate amongst agents. Because Google is continuously scraping the cyberspace for information well-nigh all the world’s websites, it tin part every bit a tremendous investigative tool — fifty-fifty for counter-espionage purposes. And Google’s search functions permit users to employ advanced operators — similar “AND,” “OR,” as well as other, much to a greater extent than sophisticated ones — that weed out as well as isolate websites as well as online information amongst extreme specificity.

According to the one-time intelligence official, in i lawsuit the Iranian double agent showed Iranian intelligence the website used to communicate amongst his or her CIA handlers, they began to scour the cyberspace for websites amongst similar digital signifiers or components — eventually hitting on the correct string of advanced search price to locate other surreptitious CIA websites. From there, Iranian intelligence tracked who was visiting these sites, as well as from where, as well as began to unravel the wider CIA network. 

U.S. intelligence officials were good aware of Iran’s formidable cyber-espionage capabilities. But they were flabbergasted that Islamic Republic of Iran managed to extirpate an entire CIA spy network using a technique that i official described every bit rudimentary — something constitute inwards basic how-to books.

But the events inwards Islamic Republic of Iran were non self-contained; they coincided roughly amongst a similar debacle inwards Communist People's Republic of China inwards 2011 as well as 2012, where authorities rounded upwards as well as executed around xxx agents working for the United States (the New York Times offset reported the extirpation of the CIA’s Communist People's Republic of China sources inwards May 2017). Some United States intelligence officials also believe that one-time Beijing-based CIA officeholder Jerry Lee, who was charged amongst spying on behalf of the Chinese authorities inwards May 2018, was partially responsible for the devastation of the CIA’s China-based source network. But Lee’s betrayal does non explicate the extent of the damage, or the rapidity amongst which Chinese intelligence was able to position as well as destroy the network, said one-time officials.   

U.S. officials believe that Chinese intelligence obtained physical access to the transitional, or temporary, surreptitious communications arrangement used past times the CIA to lucifer amongst new, unvetted sources — as well as broke through the firewall separating it from the principal covert communications system, compromising the CIA’s entire property network inwards that country, Foreign Policy reported before this year.

It’s non clear whether Communist People's Republic of China as well as Islamic Republic of Iran cooperated, but the one-time officials said the communications systems used inwards both countries were similar. The ii governments may receive got broken the arrangement independently. But Iranian, Chinese as well as Russian officials were engaged inwards senior-level communications on cyber issues around this time, recalled i one-time senior intelligence official —interactions that were “very suspicious inwards hindsight.”

The CIA declined to comment. The Iranian Mission to the United Nations did non response to requests for comment....

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