NSA: 10 Minute English: TEST (F)
A free supplementary sesson for Upper Intermediate English Language Students of Native Speakers Academy. We hope this will encourage you to not only further your contact with real English but...
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NSA: 10 Minute English: TEST (F) - Video
After the Stuxnet digital weapon was discovered on machines in Iran in 2010, many security researchers warned that US adversaries would learn from this and other US attacks and develop similar techniques to target America and its allies.
A newly published document leaked by Edward Snowden indicates that the NSA feared the same thing and that Iran may already be doing exactly this. The NSA document from April 2013, published today by The Intercept, shows the US intelligence community is worried that Iran has learned from attacks like Stuxnet, Flame and Duquall of which were created by the same teamsin order to improve its own capabilities.
The document suggests that such attacks dont just invite counterattacks but also school adversaries on new techniques and tools to use in their counterattacks, allowing them to increase the sophistication of these assaults. Iran, the document states, has demonstrated a clear ability to learn from the capabilities and actions of others.
The document, which was prepared for a meeting between the NSA director and the British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters, doesnt mention the Stuxnet attack by name, but instead refers to Western attacks against Irans nuclear sector. Stuxnet targeted machines controlling centrifuges in Iran that were being used to enrich uranium for Irans program.
In addition to attacks against Irans nuclear sector, however, the document also states that Iran learned from a different attack that struck its oil industry. The report says Iran then replicated the techniques of that attack in a subsequent attack called Shamoon that targeted Saudi Arabias oil conglomerate, Saudi Aramco.
Irans destructive cyber attack against Saudi Aramco in August 2012, during which data was destroyed on tens of thousands of computers, was the first such attack NSA has observed from this adversary, the NSA document states. Iran, having been a victim of a similar cyber attack against its own oil industry in April 2012, has demonstrated a clear ability to learn from the capabilities and actions of others.
The latter statement in the document is referring to the so-called Wiper attack, an aggressive and destructive piece of malware that targeted machines belonging to the Iranian Oil Ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company in April 2012. Wiper didnt steal datainstead it destroyed it, first wiping content on the machines before systematically erasing system files, causing the systems to crash, and preventing them from rebooting. Wiper was designed to quickly destroy as many files as effectively as possible, which can include multiple gigabytes at a time, according to researchers at Kaspersky Lab who examined the mirror images of hard drives in Iran that were destroyed by Wiper.
Wiper was the first known data destruction attack of its kind. Although the NSA document doesnt credit the US and its allies for launching the attack, Kaspersky researchers found that it shared some circumstantial hallmarks of the Duqu and Stuxnet attacks, suggesting that Wiper might have been created and unleashed on Iran by the US or Israel.
Many believe it served as inspiration for Shamoon, a subsequent destructive attack that struck computers belonging to Saudi Aramco in August 2012. The document claims Iran was behind Shamoon. The Shamoon malware wiped data from about 30,000 machines before overwriting the Master Boot Record, preventing machines from rebooting. The attack was designed to replace erased data with an image of a burning US American flag, though the malware contained a bug that prevented the flag image from completely unfurling on machines. Instead, only a fragment of the flag appeared. Researchers said at the time that Shamoon was a copycat attack that mimicked Wiper.
Wiper is also believed to have inspired a destructive attack that struck computers belonging to banks and media companies in South Korea in March 2013. That attack wiped the hard drives and Master Boot Record of at least three banks and two media companies simultaneously and reportedly put some ATMs out of operation, preventing South Koreans from withdrawing cash from them. The report does not suggest that Iran was behind this attack.
Read more here:
NSA Acknowledges What We All Feared: Iran Learns From US Cyberattacks
After the Stuxnet digital weapon was discovered on machines in Iran in 2010, many security researchers warned that US adversaries would learn from this and other US attacks and develop similar techniques to target America and its allies.
A newly published document leaked by Edward Snowden indicates that the NSA feared the same thing and that Iran may already be doing exactly this. The NSA document from April 2013, published today by The Intercept, shows the US intelligence community is worried that Iran has learned from attacks like Stuxnet, Flame and Duquall of which were created by the same teamsin order to improve its own capabilities.
The document suggests that such attacks dont just invite counterattacks but also school adversaries on new techniques and tools to use in their counterattacks, allowing them to increase the sophistication of these assaults. Iran, the document states, has demonstrated a clear ability to learn from the capabilities and actions of others.
The document, which was prepared for a meeting between the NSA director and the British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters, doesnt mention the Stuxnet attack by name, but instead refers to Western attacks against Irans nuclear sector. Stuxnet targeted machines controlling centrifuges in Iran that were being used to enrich uranium for Irans program.
In addition to attacks against Irans nuclear sector, however, the document also states that Iran learned from a different attack that struck its oil industry. The report says Iran then replicated the techniques of that attack in a subsequent attack called Shamoon that targeted Saudi Arabias oil conglomerate, Saudi Aramco.
Irans destructive cyber attack against Saudi Aramco in August 2012, during which data was destroyed on tens of thousands of computers, was the first such attack NSA has observed from this adversary, the NSA document states. Iran, having been a victim of a similar cyber attack against its own oil industry in April 2012, has demonstrated a clear ability to learn from the capabilities and actions of others.
The latter statement in the document is referring to the so-called Wiper attack, an aggressive and destructive piece of malware that targeted machines belonging to the Iranian Oil Ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company in April 2012. Wiper didnt steal datainstead it destroyed it, first wiping content on the machines before systematically erasing system files, causing the systems to crash, and preventing them from rebooting. Wiper was designed to quickly destroy as many files as effectively as possible, which can include multiple gigabytes at a time, according to researchers at Kaspersky Lab who examined the mirror images of hard drives in Iran that were destroyed by Wiper.
Wiper was the first known data destruction attack of its kind. Although the NSA document doesnt credit the US and its allies for launching the attack, Kaspersky researchers found that it shared some circumstantial hallmarks of the Duqu and Stuxnet attacks, suggesting that Wiper might have been created and unleashed on Iran by the US or Israel.
Many believe it served as inspiration for Shamoon, a subsequent destructive attack that struck computers belonging to Saudi Aramco in August 2012. The document claims Iran was behind Shamoon. The Shamoon malware wiped data from about 30,000 machines before overwriting the Master Boot Record, preventing machines from rebooting. The attack was designed to replace erased data with an image of a burning US American flag, though the malware contained a bug that prevented the flag image from completely unfurling on machines. Instead, only a fragment of the flag appeared. Researchers said at the time that Shamoon was a copycat attack that mimicked Wiper.
Wiper is also believed to have inspired a destructive attack that struck computers belonging to banks and media companies in South Korea in March 2013. That attack wiped the hard drives and Master Boot Record of at least three banks and two media companies simultaneously and reportedly put some ATMs out of operation, preventing South Koreans from withdrawing cash from them. The report does not suggest that Iran was behind this attack.
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The NSA Acknowledges What We All Feared: Iran Learns From US Cyberattacks
An NSA document newly published today suggests two interesting facts that havent previously been reported.
The Intercept, which published the document, highlighted that in it the NSA expresses fear that it may be teaching Iran how to hack, but there are two other points in the document that merit attention.
One concerns the spy tool known as Flame; the other refers to concerns the NSA had about partnering with the British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters and Israeli intelligence in surveillance operations.
In the document, prepared in April 2013 for a meeting between the NSA director and GCHQ, the author cites the Flame attack against Iran as an example of a US/GCHQ partnership. Flame was a massive spy platform exposed by Kaspersky Lab and Symantec in 2012. Flame targeted more than 10,000 machines in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, the Israeli Occupied Territories and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa and was active for at least six years before it was discovered. It used some of the same code that Stuxnet used, leading researchers to conclude that it had been created by the same US/Israel teams that had created Stuxnet. The Washington Post reported in 2012 that the US and Israel were both behind Flame, quoting anonymous US officials. But the new Snowden document hints that GCHQ might have been involved in Flame with the US.
Although the document doesnt say overtly that GCHQ partnered with the US in creating and unleashing Flame, it hints obliquely at cooperation. The document notes that the NSA has successfully worked multiple high-priority surges with GCHQ and cites Flame as an example. But, oddly, it doesnt say they worked together on creating Flame. Instead, it simply cites Irans discovery of Flame in a list of projects on which the GCHQ and the US collaborated.
These jointly worked events include the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran; Irans discovery of computer network exploitation tools on their networks in 2012 and 2013; and support to policymakers during the multiple rounds of P5 plus 1 negotiation on Irans nuclear program, the document reads. The reference to an embassy attack presumably refers to the 2011 attack on the British embassy by protestors in Iran. The reference to the P5 plus 1 relates to negotiations between Iran and Western powers over Irans nuclear program. The network attacks are identified by name as the Flame attacks in another part of the document.
Its unclear what else this might refer to if not the two countries partnering in the creation and unleashing of Flame. Other documents leaked by Edward Snowden have spelled out in more detail how the NSA and GCHQ have partnered over the years in other spy operations, ranging from sharing data siphoned from undersea cables to the hacking of telecom networks, like Belgiums Belgacom, to monitor mobile traffic. The new document suggests that the two countries might also have partnered on Flame in some way, though its unclear to what extent. If this is correct, and the previous Post is correct as well, it would mean the three nations teamed up to spy on Iran, presumably over its nuclear program.
Although there are numerous examples released in the Snowden documents of NSA-GCHQ cooperation as well as NSA-Israeli cooperation, the 2013 document published today expresses concern about a trilateral agreement between the three nations.
It appears in a section discussing a collaboration between the NSA, GCHQ and ISNUa reference to the Israeli SIGINT National Unit, the Israeli counterpart to the NSA. Under the heading Potential Landmines, the document notes that GCHQ has long pushed to work with the NSA and ISNU in a trilateral arrangement to prosecute the Iranian target. And it notes that the NSA and GCHQ have agreed to share information gleaned from their separate partnerships with Israeli intelligence. But with regard to a trilateral partnership, the NSA had reservations. The document notes that the SID policy has been opposed to such a blanket arrangement.
SID refers to the Signals Intelligence Directorate. Under the SID Management Directive 422 (.pdf), the intelligence community is prohibited from delegating a mission to a non-USSS elementthat is, a non-US SIGINT Systemwithout first obtaining a memo of understanding between the NSA and the non-US entity. NSA activities are government by a number of directives, most important among them is USSID 18, which governs what the US can and cannot collect on US persons and how it must handle information collected incidentally on them. Including a foreign spy agency in data collection raises issues about oversight and legality if it involves data pertaining to U.S. persons. This may be in part why the NSA was concerned.
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Did the NSA and the UKs Spy Agency Launch a Joint Cyberattack on Iran?
As part of the NSA's program to certify commercial off-the-shelf technology for use inside the agency, mobile devices from Samsung and Boeing have been cleared for use by NSA employees.
As part of the NSA's program to certify commercial off-the-shelf technology for use inside the agency, mobile devices from Samsung and Boeing have been cleared for use by NSA employees.
This move by the NSA is part of its Commercial Solutions for Classified program (CSfC) to enable government use of the same products that we in the private sector enjoy, rather than specially engineered government-only products that are often feature-poor, slow to market and expensive.
+RELATED: How the NSA is improving security for everyone +
Samsung's products include the Galaxy S4/S5, Galaxy S5 with KNOX, Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition, Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition with KNOX 2, Galaxy Note Edge with KNOX 2, Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and 10.5 LTE with KNOX 2, and the Galaxy Alpha with KNOX 2. For Samsung, Knox provides the added security features key to making the grade in the CSfC program.
Boeing's offering, which is not commercially available, is the Boeing Black smartphone. Sold only to government agencies and contractors working with government agencies, the Black smartphone is a sealed, tamper proof device.
The heightened level of security built into both product lines comes at a time when the world has seen a significant rise in cyberattacks upon the Android OS. For example, a recent FireEye Mobility Security Team study of the top 1,000 most downloaded free Android Apps found 68 percent susceptible to Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks and contained one or more SSL vulnerabilities.
John Morrison, senior director, Samsung Research America says "the CSfC Program really stretches the boundaries of high security on mobility." He adds that "the innovation driven by the U.S. government results in more secure products in private sector hands."
In order for these products to be certified, the vendors must satisfy stringent security requirements. For example, the devices must generate asymmetric cryptographic keys used for key Establishment and Authentication; perform encryption/decryption in accordance with a specified cryptographic algorithm; perform cryptographic hashing in accordance with a specified cryptographic algorithm and message digest size; and they must restrict the ability to configure policies for passwords, session locking, device enabling/disabling, application installation, VPN protection or specify wireless networks.
A key example of the security issues surrounding BYOD smartphones and tablets is the camera that most have. Morrison says, "The issue for various government and commercial entities is that they have unique missions and therefore require customization or a different configuration for the devices they want to use. For example, while many commercial work sites that permit cameras to be available for use, there are many sites, both government and commercial, where the CAMERA MUST ALWAYS BE OFF."
Link:
NSA approves Samsung and Boeing mobile devices for employee use