Category Archives: NSA

In 2003, the city of Oakland agreed to place its police department under the watchful eye of an outside monitoring team and federal judge to address allegations of brutality and civil rights violations. The arrangement was only intended to last five years. Its been more than 18.

Now, the need for federal oversight might be coming to an end, two civil rights attorneys wrote in court documents filed Wednesday evening.

Attorneys Jim Chanin and John Burris, who represent plaintiffs in the 21-year-old lawsuit which led to the sweeping oversight program, wrote that the Oakland Police Department has made significant progress, and after years of backsliding there is real momentum toward substantive compliance.

It is now time to run through the finish line and bring OPD into full and final compliance, the attorneys wrote.

In their brief to U.S. District Judge William Orrick, Chanin and Burris noted that they plan to begin talks with city of Oakland officials to settle the case within the next several weeks.

The documents were filed ahead of a Sept. 1 hearing in front of Orrick, who along with court-appointed monitor Robert Warshaw, oversees the program. OPD remains out of full compliance with 5 of 52 mandated reforms, but Chanin and Burris believe the departments recent progress puts them close enough to the finish line to begin discussing the end of court oversight at OPD.

It wouldnt stop immediately. To wind down the program, OPD would be subject to a one-year sustainability period in which it will have to prove that the reforms can last without the intervention of outside authorities.

Originally, federal oversight was supposed to end in 2008, after OPD completed the 52 court-ordered tasks. The requirementsincluding improving the quality of police misconduct investigations, collecting and analyzing data to track racial disparities, and changes to a variety of policieswere agreed upon in the settlement of a lawsuit filed by 119 plaintiffs in 2000 alleging a group of officers known as The Riders planted drugs, beat, and racially profiled West Oakland residents.

The Negotiated Settlement Agreement, or NSA, is now in its 19th year. It is one of the longest federal oversight programs of a U.S. police department, outlasting three mayors, six police chiefs and several city administrators.

OPD was slow initially to comply with the requirements of the NSA, and multiple scandals over the years caused further setbacks. Chanin and Burris were prepared to call for an end to the oversight and begin the one-year sustainability period in 2016, until a sexual exploitation scandal involving OPD officers exploded, leading to the removal of three police chiefs in a week.

Under police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, appointed in 2017, the department fell out of compliance with five of the reform tasks it had earlier achieved. One case at the center of the departments backsliding was the fatal police shooting of Joshua Pawlik, who was discovered by officers asleep with a gun and shot as he was waking up. In reports to the judge, OPDs monitor Warshaw wrote that Kirkpatrick was personally responsible for the departments mishandling of the investigation of the officers who killed Pawlik.

According to recent assessments by Warshaw, and Chanin and Burris, OPD has managed to come back into compliance in several areas, including how officers report use of force incidents; the departments use of an Executive Force Review Board to investigate officer-involved shootings and other critical incidents; and its creation and use of a sophisticated, data-driven early warning system to track officer conduct and help the department manage risks.

OPD remains out of compliance with five tasks related to: completing internal affairs investigations within a required timeframe; internal affairs complaint procedures; use of force investigations; tracking who OPD officers stop and why; and consistency of discipline against OPD members.

Warshaw, Chanin, and Burris have praised current Chief LeRonne Armstrong for his commitment to advance these reforms. When he became chief earlier this year, Armstrong set a goal to end the NSA within a year. In a recent interview with The Oaklandside, the chief said he believed the department is close to compliance.

Weve been holding people accountable like we were asked to do. Ive been seeking the cultural change that the court is looking for, Armstrong said. He noted that the federal monitors more recent reports have indicated the positive momentum of the department.

In their brief filed Wednesday night, Chanin and Burris cited a study by Campaign Zero examining rates of police shootings, which showed Oakland had the lowest rate of cities included in the survey. The list included Dallas, Los Angeles, San Jose, Baltimore, Long Beach, San Francisco, Chicago and New York City. The same study found Oakland did the most to reduce arrest disparities between Black and white people.

Attorneys for the city of Oakland, in a brief also filed Wednesday evening, struck a similar tone. City Attorney Barbara Parker and special counsel Brigid S. Martin wrote that the city is confident that under Chief Armstrongs leadership, the department will achieve full compliance.

The citys attorneys recognized that the nut of this case remains what it was in the beginning, which is racial disparity.

Other law enforcement agencies in the Bay Area look to the department as a pioneer in evaluating and reducing racial disparities in police stops, they wrote, noting that from 2013 to 2019 Oakland outperformed every other city of similar size reducing overall arrest and drug possession arrests between Black and white residents.

In an encouraging sign, Warshaw wrote in a recent report that the Executive Force Review Boards decision to overturn Internal Affairs Division findings and discipline two officers for using excessive force in a dog bite case shows OPD is examining use of force cases more thoroughly than before. Warshaw also did not disagree with the IADs findings related to the departments response to the George Floyd protests last summer, during which OPD officers used tear gas and other less lethal weapons against hundreds of protesters. After an exhaustive investigation, OPD found that dozens of officers had violated department policies and faced discipline.

Another good sign for OPD is that the racial disparities within the department regarding discipline may not be as severe as first thought. In 2020, an outside consultant reported that Black officers were much more likely to be sustained for misconduct and punished than officers of other races. Recently, however, Stanford University professors who have helped OPD with data analysis regarding racial disparities found that the study inadvertently counted some discipline and that as a result the findings may have been distorted.

Warshaw wrote in a report filed Monday with Judge Orrick that we have a cautious optimism that the Department can enter the final stages of this long process.

The outstanding issues are important ones, and speak to the core of the NSA, Warshaw wrote. Timeliness of investigations and the meaningfulness of risk management, not merely as a core value, but as a process that culminates in modified behaviors, are essential. Robust and comprehensive reviews of use of force are of paramount importance. Addressing internal and external disparities, be they who is stopped, and why, or who is disciplined, and who is not, should help lay the foundation for sustainable reform.

One potential obstacle to ending oversight, Chanin and Burris wrote, is the active internal affairs investigation of racist and sexist Instagram posts on an account believed to be run by one or more Oakland police officers. Posts included disdain for OPD policies meant to prevent police brutality and corruption along with sexist images and jokes. The deadline for completion of this investigation is days away, according to the two attorneys, and they hope to review the findings.

Ultimately, Chanin and Burris wrote that OPD has come a long way.

The Oakland Police Department has moved from being one of the worst police departments in the San Francisco Bay Area to being one of the best police departments in comparable cities in the country, the civil rights attorneys wrote. Assuming the Instagram case is handled appropriately, there is no reason that the Sustainability Period cannot start very soon.

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Federal oversight of the Oakland Police Department may be nearing its end, attorneys say - The Oaklandside

NBC News published this video item, entitled Full NSA Sullivan Interview: Kabul Evacuation Is Very Risky and Dangerous below is their description.

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Full NSA Sullivan Interview: Kabul Evacuation Is Very Risky and Dangerous

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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south; Iran to the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to the north; and China to the northeast.

Occupying 652,000 square kilometers (252,000 sq mi), it is a mountainous country with plains in the north and southwest. Kabul is the capital and largest city. The population is around 32 million, composed mostly of ethnic Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks.

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Full NSA Sullivan Interview: Kabul Evacuation Is Very Risky and Dangerous - The Global Herald - The Global Herald

It was in late June when Fox News' Tucker Carlson claimed on the air that the National Security Agency was "monitoring" his electronic communications, as part of a scheme to take his show "off the air." The host offered no proof, but several congressional Republicans rallied behind him -- with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) even asking Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calf.) to launch some kind of probe into the odd allegations.

Weeks later, the GOP's willingness to take the matter seriously hasn't gone away.

The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee is calling on the director of national intelligence to investigate allegations that the federal government "unmasked" Fox News host Tucker Carlson. In a letter to Avril Haines, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said that recent media reports that "Mr. Carlson was unmasked by a government agency" have "only fueled the perception that unmasking is being used as a political hammer or to satisfy curiosity."

In his written request to the DNI, the Republican senator not only referenced the "perception" of political improprieties, Rubio also argued that the public is "attuned to the perception of widespread misconduct." His letter also referenced "public suspicion and distrust."

Or put another way, the Florida Republican -- the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the panel's former chairman -- isn't aware of any wrongdoing on the part of the intelligence community, but he is aware of "perceptions."

Of course, those perceptions may very well exist, though that doesn't make them true.

Let's circle back to our earlier coverage to review how we arrived at this point. NBC News reported last month that after Carlson raised the allegations, the NSA took the unusual step of issuing a written statement, explaining that the Fox News personality "has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air. NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States."

NBC News' report added, "The conservative host has a history of making false or exaggerated claims."

It was against this backdrop that Axios moved the ball forward with a related report, adding that Carlson was "talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before the Fox News host accused the National Security Agency of spying on him."

Axios added that U.S. officials "learned about Carlson's efforts to secure the Putin interview. Carlson learned that the government was aware of his outreach and that's the basis of his extraordinary accusation."

If Axios' sources were correct, it raised the possibility of a scenario in which the Fox News host may have been in communication with a Kremlin official who was under surveillance. Under such a scenario, the NSA wasn't monitoring Carlson's communications; it was monitoring the communications of the person Carlson was talking to.

If you connected with a member of Vladimir Putin's team, the NSA would probably be aware of that, too. It would not, however, be proof of an NSA plot to derail your professional career.

It also wouldn't warrant a congressional investigation or weird partisan conspiracy theories.

All of this was reminiscent of Donald Trump's insistence that U.S. intelligence agencies "spied on" his 2016 campaign. When pressed for proof, Republicans have pointed to instances in which members of Team Trump were in communication with their Russian allies.

But again, this wasn't because anyone was spying on the Trump campaign, it was because U.S. intelligence agencies were spying on Russians -- whom Team Trump was chatting with before taking office four years ago.

If the reporting is correct, and something similar happened to Carlson, it wouldn't be shocking in the slightest.

So why is Marco Rubio taking an interest in this weeks later? It's possible that the senator, given his powerful position on the Intelligence Committee, has uncovered relevant information that sparked new interest in the story.

And it's also possible that the ambitious Republican is playing a partisan political game, so that he can tell his party's base and conservative media outlets that he played along with their suspicions, indifferent to whether those ideas are rooted in fact.

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Rubio takes an interest in the right's NSA conspiracy theory - MSNBC

U.S. intelligence officials face bipartisan congressional pressure to explain their use of surveillance powers, following a rebuke from a federal judge and Fox News host Tucker Carlsons high-profile dispute with the National Security Agency.

Our institutions are only as good as the American publics confidence in them, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wrote a top intelligence official, requesting an investigation of Carlsons allegation the NSA violated his privacy. The NSA publicly responded to Mr. Carlsons allegations with a statement on Twitter that frankly only created more questions.

Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, did not dispute the NSAs denial of wrongdoing in Carlsons case. Yet, Rubios request for a formal inquiry into Carlsons complaint coincided with a sharper rebuke of the FBI, which has drawn bipartisan ire due to a federal judges revelation of pervasive misuse of data collected by the NSA.

We each share an obligation to protect Americans civil liberties, Indiana Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz and California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren wrote in a Tuesday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray. However, the FBI has repeatedly violated the civil liberties of Americans through widespread misuse of Section 702 data.

TUCKER CARLSON'S NAME IN NSA INTERCEPTS REVEALED THROUGH 'UNMASKING': REPORT

Section 702 is a provision of federal law that allows the NSA to collect the communications of foreign targets overseas without a warrant. That surveillance authority looms over both controversies, as a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge revealed FBI officials have failed to follow the rules designed to prevent the Section 702 program from being used in violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans.

The FBIs failure to properly apply its querying standard when searching Section 702-acquired information was more pervasive than was previously believed, the judge wrote in a November 18, 2020, opinion that the Office of the Director of Intelligence published in April.

Story continues

Carlson, for his part, has accused President Joe Bidens administration of spying on him and planning to leak his plans to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin.

I wasn't embarrassed about trying to interview Putin. He's obviously newsworthy, Carlson said last month. But still, in this case, I decided to keep it quiet. I figured that any kind of publicity would rattle the Russians and make the interview less likely to happen. But the Biden administration found out anyway, by reading my emails.

NSA officials denied that Carlson was a target of surveillance, while his account spurred outside analysts to surmise the U.S. spy agencies tasked with monitoring the communications of Putins associates detected Carlsons interview request a phenomenon known as incidental collection.

By law, I should have been identified internally merely as a U.S. journalist or American journalist, Carlson said. But that's not how I was identified. It was identified by name. I was unmasked.

Rubio, following Carlsons demand for an explanation from National Intelligence director Avril Haines and NSA Director Paul Nakasone, urged Haines to coordinate with the NSA to launch a formal inquiry into both aspects of the controversy: the initial information gathering and the alleged unmasking.

However, the senator did not dispute the NSAs denial and suggested a transparent investigation might clear the air.

Our institutions are only as good as the American publics confidence in them, Rubio wrote to Haines. As such, it is essential that the IC under your leadership hold itself to account if misconduct has occurred, and convincingly reassure an American public increasingly attuned to the perception of widespread misconduct where it has not occurred.

Spartz, Lofgren, and 15 other House lawmakers took up the FISA court judge's findings rather than Carlson's complaint. They signaled to Wray they are confident the FBI is guilty of misuse of raw Section 702 data, although they did not refer to Carlson. They set a deadline for the FBI chief to schedule a classified briefing on the controversy.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The FBI has systematically failed to comply with Section 702 restrictions and its own regulations to protect Americans civil liberties, Spartz, the Indiana Republican, said Tuesday in a statement accompanying the release of the Aug. 2 letter. The core function of the government is to protect our constitutional rights, and members of Congress should be briefed by FBI officials regarding the bureaus efforts to remediate this issue.

Washington Examiner Videos

Tags: News, Foreign Policy, National Security, Tucker Carlson, Russia, Marco Rubio, NSA, Avril Haines

Original Author: Joel Gehrke

Original Location: Congress pressures US spy agencies as Tucker Carlson feuds with NSA

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Congress pressures US spy agencies as Tucker Carlson feuds with NSA - Yahoo News

Ina trilateral security meeting held between Sri Lanka, India, and the Maldives on August 4, the nations identified four pillars of cooperation in areas related to terrorism and radicalization, marine safety and security, trafficking and organized crime, and cybersecurity, the Indian High Commission said in a statement on Friday. Held virtually due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the first Deputy National Security Adviser (NSA) level meeting of the Colombo Security Conclavewas hosted by Sri Lanka to hold discussions on vital cooperation and coordination to address the key contemporary security challenges in the region.

The high-level NSA meet was held under the Chairmanship of Chief of Defence Staff and Army Commander General Shavendra Silva with the participation of Deputy National Security Adviser of India Pankaj Saran and National Security Advisers Office Secretary at the Presidents Office of Maldives Aishath Nooshin Waheed. Bangladesh, Mauritius, and Seychelles participated as observers, and were participated by Principal Staff Officer to Armed Forces Division of Bangladesh Army Lt. Gen. Waker Uz Zaman, Mauritius Prime Ministers Office Permanent Secretary Pusmawatee Sohun, and Seychelles Peoples Force Chief of Defence Forces Colonel Micheal Rosette.

The NSA talks were held under the widened format of the Colombo Security Conclave, which held talks over the specific proposals for cooperation related to the four pillars of cooperation identified by the participant countries. The three nations agreed to hold regular interactions, joint exercises, capacity building, and training activities and enhancing their capabilities to keep up with the spirit of regional cooperation.

"The meeting was marked by convergence of views on common security threats and was held in a warm, positive and forward looking manner," Indian High Commission said in a statement on Friday. The meeting identified four pillars of cooperation under the Colombo Security Conclave, namely, Marine Safety and Security, Terrorism and Radicalisation, Trafficking and Organised Crime and Cyber security," the mission added.

The decision to establish the Colombo Security Conclave was agreed upon in November 2020 at the NSA-level meeting of India, Lanka, and the Maldives. The meeting aims to strengthen cooperation on the maritime and security issues trilaterally among the three key Indian Ocean nations.

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Cybersecurity among '4 pillars of cooperation' in NSA meeting between India, SL, Maldives - Republic World

U.S. intelligence officials face bipartisan congressional pressure to explain their use of surveillance powers, following a rebuke from a federal judge and Fox News host Tucker Carlson's high-profile dispute with the National Security Agency.

"Our institutions are only as good as the American public's confidence in them," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wrote a top intelligence official, requesting an investigation of Carlson's allegation the NSA violated his privacy. "The NSA publicly responded to Mr. Carlson's allegations with a statement on Twitter that frankly only created more questions."

Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, did not dispute the NSA's denial of wrongdoing in Carlson's case. Yet, Rubio's request for "a formal inquiry" into Carlson's complaint coincided with a sharper rebuke of the FBI, which has drawn bipartisan ire due to a federal judge's revelation of "pervasive" misuse of data collected by the NSA.

"We each share an obligation to protect Americans' civil liberties," Indiana Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz and California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren wrote in a Tuesday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray. "However, the FBI has repeatedly violated the civil liberties of Americans through widespread misuse of Section 702 data."

TUCKER CARLSON'S NAME IN NSA INTERCEPTS REVEALED THROUGH 'UNMASKING': REPORT

Section 702 is a provision of federal law that allows the NSA to collect the communications of foreign targets overseas without a warrant. That surveillance authority looms over both controversies, as a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge revealed FBI officials have failed to follow the rules designed to prevent the Section 702 program from being used in violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans.

"The FBI's failure to properly apply its querying standard when searching Section 702-acquired information was more pervasive than was previously believed," the judge wrote in a November 18, 2020, opinion that the Office of the Director of Intelligence published in April.

Carlson, for his part, has accused President Joe Biden's administration of "spying" on him and planning to leak his plans to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I wasn't embarrassed about trying to interview Putin. He's obviously newsworthy," Carlson said last month. "But still, in this case, I decided to keep it quiet. I figured that any kind of publicity would rattle the Russians and make the interview less likely to happen. But the Biden administration found out anyway, by reading my emails."

NSA officials denied that Carlson was a "target" of surveillance, while his account spurred outside analysts to surmise the U.S. spy agencies tasked with monitoring the communications of Putin's associates detected Carlson's interview request a phenomenon known as "incidental" collection.

"By law, I should have been identified internally merely as a U.S. journalist or American journalist," Carlson said. "But that's not how I was identified. It was identified by name. I was unmasked."

Rubio, following Carlson's demand for an explanation from National Intelligence director Avril Haines and NSA Director Paul Nakasone, urged Haines to coordinate with the NSA to launch a "formal inquiry" into both aspects of the controversy: the initial information gathering and the alleged unmasking.

However, the senator did not dispute the NSA's denial and suggested a transparent investigation might clear the air.

"Our institutions are only as good as the American public's confidence in them," Rubio wrote to Haines. "As such, it is essential that the IC under your leadership hold itself to account if misconduct has occurred, and convincingly reassure an American public increasingly attuned to the perception of widespread misconduct where it has not occurred."

Spartz, Lofgren, and 15 other House lawmakers took up the FISA court judge's findings rather than Carlson's complaint. They signaled to Wray they are confident the FBI is guilty of "misuse of raw Section 702 data," although they did not refer to Carlson. They set a deadline for the FBI chief to schedule a classified briefing on the controversy.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

"The FBI has systematically failed to comply with Section 702 restrictions and its own regulations to protect Americans' civil liberties," Spartz, the Indiana Republican, said Tuesday in a statement accompanying the release of the Aug. 2 letter. "The core function of the government is to protect our constitutional rights, and members of Congress should be briefed by FBI officials regarding the bureau's efforts to remediate this issue."

Original Location: Congress pressures US spy agencies as Tucker Carlson feuds with NSA

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Congress pressures US spy agencies as Tucker Carlson feuds with NSA - Denver Gazette

As a member of the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen Angus King has reason to worry about hackers. At a briefing by security staff this year, he said he got some advice on how to help keep his cellphone secure.

Step One: Turn off phone.

Step Two: Turn it back on.

Thats it. At a time of widespread digital insecurity it turns out that the oldest and simplest computer fix there is turning a device off then back on again can thwart hackers from stealing information from smartphones.

Regularly rebooting phones wont stop the army of cybercriminals or spy-for-hire firms that have sowed chaos and doubt about the ability to keep any information safe and private in our digital lives. But it can make even the most sophisticated hackers work harder to maintain access and steal data from a phone.

This is all about imposing cost on these malicious actors, said Neal Ziring, technical director of the National Security Agencys cybersecurity directorate.

The NSA issued a best practices guide for mobile device security last year in which it recommends rebooting a phone every week as a way to stop hacking.

King, an independent from Maine, says rebooting his phone is now part of his routine.

Id say probably once a week, whenever I think of it, he said.

Almost always in arms reach, rarely turned off and holding huge stores of personal and sensitive data, cellphones have become top targets for hackers looking to steal text messages, contacts and photos, as well as track users locations and even secretly turn on their video and microphones.

I always think of phones as like our digital soul, said Patrick Wardle, a security expert and former NSA researcher.

The number of people whose phones are hacked each year is unknowable, but evidence suggests its significant. A recent investigation into phone hacking by a global media consortium has caused political uproars in France, India, Hungary and elsewhere after researchers found scores of journalists, human rights activists and politicians on a leaked list of what were believed to be potential targets of an Israeli hacker-for-hire company.

The advice to periodically reboot a phone reflects, in part, a change in how top hackers are gaining access to mobile devices and the rise of so-called zero-click exploits that work without any user interaction instead of trying to get users to open something thats secretly infected.

Theres been this evolution away from having a target click on a dodgy link, said Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, an internet civil rights watchdog at the University of Toronto.

Typically, once hackers gain access to a device or network, they look for ways to persist in the system by installing malicious software to a computers root file system. But thats become more difficult as phone manufacturers such as Apple and Google have strong security to block malware from core operating systems, Ziring said.

Its very difficult for an attacker to burrow into that layer in order to gain persistence, he said.

That encourages hackers to opt for in-memory payloads that are harder to detect and trace back to whoever sent them. Such hacks cant survive a reboot, but often dont need to since many people rarely turn their phones off.

Adversaries came to the realization they dont need to persist, Wardle said. If they could do a one-time pull and exfiltrate all your chat messages and your contact and your passwords, its almost game over anyways, right?

A robust market currently exists for hacking tools that can break into phones. Some companies like Zerodium and Crowdfence publicly offer millions of dollars for zero-click exploits.

And hacker-for-hire companies that sell mobile-device hacking services to governments and law enforcement agencies have proliferated in recent years. The most well known is the Israeli-based NSO Group, whose spyware researchers say has been used around the world to break into the phones of human rights activists, journalists, and even members of the Catholic clergy.

NSO Group is the focus of the recent exposs by a media consortium that reported the companys spyware tool Pegasus was used in 37 instances of successful or attempted phone hacks of business executives, human rights activists and others, according to The Washington Post.

The company is also being sued in the U.S. by Facebook for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with a zero-click exploit.

NSO Group has said it only sells its spyware to vetted government agencies for use against terrorists and major criminals. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

The persistence of NSOs spyware used to be a selling point of the company. Several years ago its U.S.-based subsidy pitched law enforcement agencies a phone hacking tool that would survive even a factory reset of a phone, according to documents obtained by Vice News.

But Marczak, who has tracked NSO Groups activists closely for years, said it looks like the company first starting using zero-click exploits that forgo persistence around 2019.

He said victims in the WhatsApp case would see an incoming call for a few rings before the spyware was installed. In 2020, Marczak and Citizen Lab exposed another zero-click hack attributed to NSO Group that targeted several journalists at Al Jazeera. In that case, the hackers used Apples iMessage texting service.

There was nothing that any of the targets reported seeing on their screen. So that one was both completely invisible as well as not requiring any user interaction, Marczak said.

With such a powerful tool at their disposal, Marczak said rebooting your phone wont do much to stop determined hackers. Once you reboot, they could simply send another zero-click.

Its sort of just a different model, its persistence through reinfection, he said.

The NSAs guide also acknowledges that rebooting a phone works only sometimes. The agencys guide for mobile devices has an even simpler piece of advice to really make sure hackers arent secretly turning on your phones camera or microphone to record you: dont carry it with you.

Read the original:
NSA recommends rebooting a phone every week to stop hacking - The Indian Express

As a member of the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Angus King has reason to worry about hackers. At a briefing by security staff this year, he said he got some advice on how to help keep his cellphone secure.

Step One: Turn off phone.

Step Two: Turn it back on.

Thats it. At a time of widespread digital insecurity it turns out that the oldest and simplest computer fix there is turning a device off then back on again can thwart hackers from stealing information from smartphones.

Regularly rebooting phones wont stop the army of cybercriminals or spy-for-hire firms that have sowed chaos and doubt about the ability to keep any information safe and private in our digital lives. But it can make even the most sophisticated hackers work harder to maintain access and steal data from a phone.

This is all about imposing cost on these malicious actors, said Neal Ziring, technical director of the National Security Agencys cybersecurity directorate.

The NSA issued a best practices guide for mobile device security last year in which it recommends rebooting a phone every week as a way to stop hacking.

King, an independent from Maine, says rebooting his phone is now part of his routine.

Id say probably once a week, whenever I think of it, he said.

Almost always in arms reach, rarely turned off and holding huge stores of personal and sensitive data, cellphones have become top targets for hackers looking to steal text messages, contacts and photos, as well as track users locations and even secretly turn on their video and microphones.

I always think of phones as like our digital soul, said Patrick Wardle, a security expert and former NSA researcher.

The number of people whose phones are hacked each year is unknowable, but evidence suggests its significant. A recent investigation into phone hacking by a global media consortium has caused political uproars in France, India, Hungary and elsewhere after researchers found scores of journalists, human rights activists and politicians on a leaked list of what were believed to be potential targets of an Israeli hacker-for-hire company.

The advice to periodically reboot a phone reflects, in part, a change in how top hackers are gaining access to mobile devices and the rise of so-called zero-click exploits that work without any user interaction instead of trying to get users to open something thats secretly infected.

Theres been this evolution away from having a target click on a dodgy link, said Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, an internet civil rights watchdog at the University of Toronto.

Typically, once hackers gain access to a device or network, they look for ways to persist in the system by installing malicious software to a computers root file system. But thats become more difficult as phone manufacturers such as Apple and Google have strong security to block malware from core operating systems, Ziring said.

Its very difficult for an attacker to burrow into that layer in order to gain persistence, he said.

That encourages hackers to opt for in-memory payloads that are harder to detect and trace back to whoever sent them. Such hacks cant survive a reboot, but often dont need to since many people rarely turn their phones off.

Adversaries came to the realization they dont need to persist, Wardle said. If they could do a one-time pull and exfiltrate all your chat messages and your contact and your passwords, its almost game over anyways, right?

A robust market currently exists for hacking tools that can break into phones. Some companies like Zerodium and Crowdfence publicly offer millions of dollars for zero-click exploits.

And hacker-for-hire companies that sell mobile-device hacking services to governments and law enforcement agencies have proliferated in recent years. The most well known is the Israeli-based NSO Group, whose spyware researchers say has been used around the world to break into the phones of human rights activists, journalists, and even members of the Catholic clergy.

NSO Group is the focus of the recent exposs by a media consortium that reported the companys spyware tool Pegasus was used in 37 instances of successful or attempted phone hacks of business executives, human rights activists and others, according to The Washington Post.

The company is also being sued in the U.S. by Facebook for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with a zero-click exploit.

NSO Group has said it only sells its spyware to vetted government agencies for use against terrorists and major criminals. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

The persistence of NSOs spyware used to be a selling point of the company. Several years ago its U.S.-based subsidy pitched law enforcement agencies a phone hacking tool that would survive even a factory reset of a phone, according to documents obtained by Vice News.

But Marczak, who has tracked NSO Groups activists closely for years, said it looks like the company first starting using zero-click exploits that forgo persistence around 2019.

He said victims in the WhatsApp case would see an incoming call for a few rings before the spyware was installed. In 2020, Marczak and Citizen Lab exposed another zero-click hack attributed to NSO Group that targeted several journalists at Al Jazeera. In that case, the hackers used Apples iMessage texting service.

There was nothing that any of the targets reported seeing on their screen. So that one was both completely invisible as well as not requiring any user interaction, Marczak said.

With such a powerful tool at their disposal, Marczak said rebooting your phone wont do much to stop determined hackers. Once you reboot, they could simply send another zero-click.

Its sort of just a different model, its persistence through reinfection, he said.

The NSAs guide also acknowledges that rebooting a phone works only sometimes. The agencys guide for mobile devices has an even simpler piece of advice to really make sure hackers arent secretly turning on your phones camera or microphone to record you: dont carry it with you.

Originally posted here:
Worried about smartphone hackers? Turn your phone off, back on, says NSA - WRAL Tech Wire

Canadian County Sheriff Chris West has been elected to the office of secretary of the National Sheriffs Association.

West who began his second term in office as Canadian County sheriff in January, ran unopposed for the office and was sworn in as NSA Secretary by NSA President Vernon Stanforth of Fayette County, Ohio, in June.

Its an honor to have been able to swear Sheriff West into this very important leadership role with the National Sheriffs Association.His citizens should be very proud that their sheriff is serving not only their county, but sheriffs and their constituents from all across the country, Stanforth.

The National Sheriffs Association is one of the largest nonprofit associations of law enforcement professionals in the United States, representing more than 3,000 elected sheriffs across the nation, and with a total membership of about 14,000 individuals. NSA is dedicated to raising the level of professionalism among sheriffs, their deputies, and others in the field of law enforcement, public safetyand criminal justice.

This is a huge honor, and Im very humbled at the opportunity.I look forward to working with Sheriff Stanforth and other members of the NSA Executive Committee and Board of Directors, as well as other law enforcement professionals, agencies and associations across this great country to be a voice for our communities on public safety and law enforcement issues impacting every citizen of this country, West said.

West also serves as the first vice president of the Oklahoma Sheriffs Association (OSA), and will become President of the OSA in October.

To be considered for this column, please email achievement announcements and photos to LLynn@Oklahoman.com.

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Achievers: Sheriff elected to National Sheriffs Association Executive Committee - Oklahoman.com

Tucker Carlson was talking to a U.S.-based Kremlin intermediary about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before Fox News hosts accused him of spying on the National Security Agency. , A source familiar with the conversation told Axios.

Important reason: Those sources said US government officials had learned about Carlsons efforts to secure Putins interview.Carlson learned that the government was aware of his outreach and that was the basis for his extraordinary accusations and then rare. Public refusal By the NSA he was targeted for.

Big picture: Carlsons accusation soon became Cause Celebrity on the right, congratulating one of Americas most prominent conservatives for allegations that it may have been monitored by US intelligence.

Inside story: On June 28, Carlson warned about 3 million viewers the day before, to warn the NSA that it is monitoring our electronic communications and plans to leak them in an attempt. I heard from a whistleblower in the US government who contacted me. To air this show

Fox News Spokesperson In response to our report, We support hosts pursuing interviews and stories without government intervention.

Why Carlson, Or his sources would think that this outreach could be the basis of NSA surveillance or the motivation to cancel his show.

Carlson on wednesday Said Maria Bartiromo Regarding Fox Business, he said that only his executive producer knew about the communication in question and didnt mention it to anyone else, including his wife.

Line spacing: The official NSA statement did not directly deny that Carlsons communications had been wiped out by the agency.

Whats next: Experts say there are some plausible scenarios (including legal scenarios) that may apply.

In the third scenario, Interception may not have been involved in Carlsons communications. The US government regularly monitors the communications of people in Putins orbit, who may have been discussing details of Carlsons interview request.

conspiracy: Two sources familiar with Carlsons communications stated that his two Kremlin mediators live in the United States, but sources said they were both U.S. citizens at the time they communicated with Carlson. , Or both could not be determined if they were on US land.

Tucker Carlson asked for an interview with Putin at the time of the NSA spys allegations

Source link Tucker Carlson asked for an interview with Putin at the time of the NSA spys allegations

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Tucker Carlson asked for an interview with Putin at the time of the NSA spys allegations - Illinoisnewstoday.com