A Rare Glimpse Inside the Life of a Spy
(Editor’s Note: Understanding the life of a spy is often difficult, especially understanding the experiences of those who spend much of their careers working undercover. […] More
Espionage
Not Your Typical CIA Officer, Or?
The Unexpected Spy: From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World’s Most Notorious Terrorists By Tracy Walder | […] More
The Ex-Spy’s Reading List in the Age of COVID-19
In the age of COVID-19, The Cipher Brief reached out to our expert network to ask what they were reading. Cipher Brief Expert Marc Polymeropoulos […] More
In Espionage, Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Douglas London is a retired senior CIA Operations Officer and Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies. Mr. London served 34 years […] More
Rogue Russian Actions in Europe
Bottom Line Up Front On December 4, Germany officially declared Russia was suspected in a brazen assassination in Berlin last August. German authorities believe […] More
Tom Bossert’s Plan to Hijack the Hack
Tom Bossert spends a lot of time thinking about hacking. The former Homeland Security Advisor to President Trump who also served as the country’s Chief […] More
Behind the Budapest Escape
Undercover readers might remember that we introduced you this past spring to Bill Rapp, a former CIA analyst turned author. He’s an interesting character in […] More
Recruiting Spies in the Trump Era
Marc Polymeropoulos retired in June 2019 from the Senior Intelligence Service ranks at the CIA after a 26 year career in operational headquarters and field […] More
The Dangerous Business of Exfiltrating Spies – Part Two
When someone decides to spy on their own country for the U.S., they know they’re taking a risk. But when news broke recently that the […] More
The Dangerous Business of Exfiltrating Spies – Part One
When news broke recently that the U.S. had extracted a high-level Russian official in 2017 who had close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it […] More
Can Supply Chain Security be a Real Thing?
Cybersecurity firm Finite State issued a recent report concluding that telecommunications equipment made by Chinese firm Huawei present a higher percentage of security vulnerabilities than […] More
Bodyguard of Lies: British Intelligence and D-Day
Seventy-five years ago, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, a German agent operating in Britain began sending a series of urgent radio messages to his Nazi […] More
Russia’s Global Ambitions: A Member Briefing with Steven Hall
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week in Russia. The […] More
The CIA Director’s Real Skills
On April 16, The New York Times published an article (in which I am quoted) with the headline, “Gina Haspel Relies on Spy Skills with […] More
The Coming Chinese Storm – Part Two
In part two of ‘The Coming Chinese Storm’, former Deputy Director for Counterintelligence at the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, Mark Kelton, lays out the Chinese […] More
The Coming Chinese Storm
The Cipher Brief is engaging with dozens of Cipher Brief experts, government speakers and private industry executives this week on the national security challenges that […] More
Project Raven Raises Big Concerns
It’s difficult to feel anything other than disappointment after reading Reuter’s investigation of activities by a U.S. contractor in the UAE. The allegations that former NSA […] More
The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland
As part of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment this week, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence […] More