6:00 PM ET, Monday, July 17, 2023
The Cipher Brief curates open source information from around the world that impacts national security. Here's a look at today's headlines, broken down by region of the world:
In the Americas
U.S. Military Emails Accidentally Sent to Russian Ally Mali. The Financial Times reports that millions of U.S. military emails have been accidentally sent to Mali through a massive “typo leak.” For years, a steady flow of email traffic intended for the U.S. military’s “.mil” domain have been sent to the “.ml” domain, the country identifier for Mali. The problem was reportedly identified more than 10 years ago by Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier, who had been contracted to manage Mali’s country domain. He said he has collected nearly 117,000 misdirected emails. While none were marked classified, they reportedly included highly sensitive information such as diplomatic documents and tax returns, medical records, itineraries and login credentials of top officers. Zuurbier alerted U.S. officials to the issue this month as his contract is set to finish in the coming days, which means Mali’s government, an ally of Russia, will soon take control of the “.ml” domain. The Pentagon said it is taking steps to address the issue, including blocking emails before they are sent and requiring senders to validate intended recipients. BBC Financial Times
U.S. Chip Lobby Urges Biden Against Further Measures Against China. The Semiconductor Industry Association trade group on Monday called on the Biden administration to “refrain from further restrictions” on chip sales to China. The group said it wants time to assess the impact of such restrictions on the industry before more controls are imposed. The statement came after the Biden administration announced that it would be updating rules targeting China’s semiconductor industry and a new executive order restricting outbound investment. A spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council said that the rules are designed to ensure that US technologies are not used in a way that would undermine the country’s national security. Reuters US News
Blinken Calls for End to Senate Delays on Confirming Nominations. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said the Senate delay in confirming President Joe Biden’s nominees for diplomatic positions is a threat to national security. The nominations are being held up by Republican Senator Rand Paul, who is seeking information on the administration’s investigation into the origins of Covid-19. The State Department says there are currently 62 outstanding nominees with the Senate, including 38 ambassadorial nominees. Blinken said the delay is “tying our hands behind our back” and urged that this practice not become the “new normal.” Aides to Paul did not respond to requests for comment. Blinken’s remarks echo comments by U.S. defense officials calling for Senator Tommy Tuberville to lift his hold on 250 military nominations with the Senate over the military’s reproductive health policies. Reuters The Cipher Brief
USAID Chief Announces $500 Million in Ukraine Aid. USAID Chief Samantha Power on Monday announced more than $500 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Ukraine during a visit to Kyiv. The aid will be provided through the UN and NGOs to provide food assistance, health care and safe drinking water to those displaced and impacted by Russia’s invasion. Power said she also oversaw the transfer of an additional $2.3 million in equipment to help Ukraine repair damaged infrastructure. The U.S. has so far provided over $2.6 billion in humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the start of the war, including over $1.9 disbursed through USAID. Al Jazeera Reuters
Western Europe
Germany Seeks to Have Best Equipped Army in Europe by 2025. Germany’s Army Chief Alfons Mais on Monday said that Germany seeks to have the best equipped army division amongst European NATO allies by 2025. Berlin currently does not have a single combat-ready division, a military unit made up of over 20,000 troops. Mais said Germany aims to have the first of three divisions operational by 2025 with the second by 2027. The first division will be made up of two German mechanized brigades, which have 5,000 troops each, a more lightly armed medium brigade, and a Dutch brigade. The second division will be supplied by purchases from a 100 billion euro special fund materializing at troop level. Mais acknowledged that it will be a challenge to supply the divisions with ammunition while simultaneously supplying Ukraine with arms, further depleting stocks that have been severely limited since the end of the Cold War, adding that this is an issue all of NATO is facing. Reuters
Central and Eastern Europe
Putin Calls Kerch Bridge Strike a ‘Terrorist Attack,’ Ukraine Minister Confirms Use of Drones in Strike. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Monday strike on the Kerch Bridge a “terrorist attack.” Russian officials said two Ukrainian sea drones were used in the attack on the bridge, which reportedly killed two civilians and left part of the critical link to Moscow-annexed Crimea unusable. Putin said he has directed all Russian authorities to investigate the incident and start repairs on the bridge “as quickly as possible.” He also called for measures to better secure the “strategically important transport facility” from future attacks, though he also said the bridge has “long not been used for military transport.” In regards to a Russian response, Putin said the Russia’s defense ministry is “preparing relevant proposals.” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said that vehicle traffic on the bridge will resume on the bridge by September 15 and that the bridge will be fully repaired by November 1. Ukraine has not officially claimed responsibility for the attack on the bridge, though Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov confirmed that it was “blown up by naval drones,” and an anonymous source from Ukraine’s Security Security Service (SBU) said the attack was a joint operation between the SBU and Ukraine’s naval forces. BBC CNN Reuters
Russia Seizes Assets of Western Conglomerates. Russia on Sunday unexpectedly seized the local assets and operations of Denmark’s Carlsberg and France’s Danone, two major Western consumer-goods conglomerates. Under a decree by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the local operations of both companies are now under temporary management under the control of Russia’s federal state property management agency, Rosimushchestvo. The seizures mark the second time Russia has seized local Western assets under a decree unveiled in April that allows the state to temporarily take control of local assets and operations of entities and individuals from “unfriendly” states. Russia previously seized assets of Germany’s Uniper and Finland’s Fortum under the decree, which complicates any efforts by foreign companies seeking to exit the country. Carlsberg had said it reached a deal to sell its Russia business but that it was subject to approval by the Russian government. The company did not respond to Sunday’s decree. Danone said it had not yet found a buyer for its Russia business and that it will work to protect its rights and continue operations of the business. Wall Street Journal
Ukrainian Military Reports ‘Difficult’ Conditions in East, Deployment of 100,000 Russian Troops. Ukrainian General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the land forces of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, acknowledged on Monday that conditions are “difficult” and “challenging” on the eastern front. He said that Russia is “intensely redeploying additional forces and means to this area,” especially to counter Ukraine’s counteroffensive towards Bakhmut. He also said Russian forces launched an offensive towards the Kupyansk direction. Serhii Cherevatyi, Ukrainian Deputy Commander for Strategic Communications of the Eastern Military Grouping, echoed his remarks, saying that Russia has assembled “over 100,000 personnel, over 90 tanks, and over 370 MLRS,” as well as airborne units and motorized infantry units in the Kupyansk area. He said Russia has put “maximum effort” into the area and claimed that Russian losses “are already approaching those that were at the peak of the fighting with Wagner.” Cherevatyi said that Ukrainian forces in the area are being “very cautious” to preserve themselves. Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar previously said Sunday that sides are “changing dynamically” in eastern Ukraine and that fighting there has “somewhat intensified. CNN
Belarus Says it Intercepted Ukrainian Reconnaissance Drone. Belarus State Border Committee on Mondays said Belarusian border forces intercepted a Ukrainian reconnaissance drone on Sunday in the Bragin district of Belarus’ southern Gomel region. The agency said the drone “illegally crossed the border” and was engaged in surveillance of the Belarusian border and that border guards downed the aerial vehicle with an electronic gun. The agency added that it has launched “administrative proceedings” regarding the incident. Al Jazeera CNN
Russian Fighter Jet Crashes in Sea of Azov. A Russian Su-25 fighter-bomber crashed into the Sea of Azov near the town of Yeysk on the coast of the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Monday. Local officials say the pilot ejected from the jet before it crashed and has been rescued from the water, though the pilot’s status is unclear. Russian military officials say the jet crashed during a training flight and may have suffered an engine malfunction. Al Jazeera RFE/RL
Asia and Oceania
Taiwan Reports Record 16 Chinese Warships Near Island in Single Day. Taiwan’s defense ministry reports that China’s People’s Liberation Army sent a record 16 warships near the island in the 24 hours before 6 a.m. on Saturday. There were no announced major drills held in the area at the time. The movements broke the previous record of 14 Chinese warships sent towards Taiwan in response to former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island. The ministry added that 73 Chinese aircraft crossed the unofficial median line of the Taiwan Strait or entered the southeastern or southwestern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone in the middle of last week. The uptick in military pressure from China, seen in forays by Chinese naval and air forces around Taiwan, comes as the island prepares for presidential elections in January. CNN South China Morning Post
China Protests Taiwan Presidential Hopeful’s Planned Visit to the U.S. China’s foreign ministry says it has made “solemn representations” to Washington in protest of Taiwanese presidential candidate and vice-president William Lai Ching-te’s planned visit to the U.S next month. Lai, the candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, is set to pass through the U.S. in mid-August on his way to Paraguay for the inauguration of the Latin American country’s new president Santiago Pena. His visit comes five months before Taiwan’s presidential election in January. China’s foreign ministry said it “firmly opposes Taiwan independence separatists visiting the U.S. under any name or reason” and that China will respond with “strong and resolute measures” to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Taipei says it is normal for Taiwanese leaders and officials to stop over in the U.S. on visits to South and Central America. In April, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen stopped by New York and California as part of her visits to Guatemala and Belize. China responded by staging war games around Taiwan. Nikkei Asia Reuters South China Morning Post
China’s Xi Calls on Former Philippine President Duterte to Promote Strong Ties. Chinese President Xi Jinping met with former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in Beijing on Monday. Chinese state media reported that Xi told Duterte that he hopes he will “continue to play an important role in the friendly cooperation” between their countries. China’s foreign ministry added that Xi praised Duterte for making the “strategic choice” to forge stronger ties with China during his tenure as president of the Philippines. Duterte’s administration took a more pro-China stance than his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has reaffirmed security ties with the U.S. amid escalating tensions with Beijing over disputed waters in the South China Sea. Nikkei Asia Reuters
Middle East and Northern Africa
US Sending More Fighter Jets, Navy Destroyer to Middle East. The Pentagon announced on Monday that the U.S. will be sending additional F-35 and F-16 fighter jets and the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner to the Middle East to increase its surveillance capabilities in the region. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh stated that the deployments will boost the Pentagon’s “presence and ability to monitor the (Strait of Hormuz) and surrounding waters.” It is not clear where the additional jets would be placed or how long they will remain in the region. The move follows increased Iranian harassment and seizures of commercial shipping vessels in the region in recent months. The U.S. Navy reported earlier this month that it had prevented Iranian ships from seizing two tankers in the Gulf of Oman and then later monitored an Iranian seizure of a commercial vessel. CNN Reuters
Biden Invites Israel’s Netanyahu to Visit White House. President Joe Biden on Monday invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the U.S. The White House confirmed that Biden extended the invitation for Netanyahu to visit “later this year” in a phone call between the two leaders, a day ahead of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s planned visit to Washington. Biden has held off inviting Netanyahu, who was returned to power over six months ago, long after when most Israeli prime ministers would have visited the U.S. after entering office due to tensions over his government’s controversial judicial reforms and Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli government said that in his call with Biden, Netanyahu said he will seek a “broad public consensus” on the judicial overhaul. The two also reportedly discussed addressing threats from Iran and its regional proxies. Reuters
Islamic Jihad Says Palestinian Authorities Arrested Five Members in Jenin. The Islamic Jihad militant group announced on Monday that Palestinian security forces have detained five more of their members in Jenin. There are now 10 members from the group in Palestinian custody. Islamic Jihad spokesmen Daoud Shehab said on Monday that his group was trying to secure the release of the detainees by talking to the “rational” people in Fatah, the group in charge of the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas. The militant group has accused the Palestinian Authority of weakness and not doing enough to stand up against Israel. Israel has continuously pressed the Palestinian Authority to take tougher action against Iranian-backed militant groups like Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The Israeli government has not commented on the reported arrests. Reuters The Jerusalem Post
Israel Recognizes Western Sahara as Part of Morocco. The Moroccan government announced on Monday that the Israeli government has recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara in the latest sign of warming ties between Morocco and Israel. The Moroccan Royal Palace stated that Israel’s position on the matter was expressed in a letter to King Mohammed VI from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Separately, Rabat said that Israel is considering opening a consulate in the Moroccan city of Dakhla. The Algerian-backed Polisario Front has long pushed for the Western Sahara to be an independent state. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump recognized Morocco’s claim to the territory in return for Morocco’s decision to partially upgrade relations with Israel. Al Jazeera Reuters
Turkey’s Erdogan Says Will Not Withdraw from Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated on Monday that he is open to meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but would not do so if the meeting is conditional on the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Syria. Turkey has been one of the biggest military and political allies of the Syrian opposition and has set up dozens of bases and thousands of troops in rebel-controlled northern Syria since 2011. Ankara has said its military presence in the region is needed to secure its border against groups it deems terrorist organizations. Assad has previously said he is open to engagement with Turkey but that there would be no point to meeting Erdogan until Turkey’s “illegal occupation” ends. Despite the tensions, Turkey may still follow the region’s trend towards rapprochement with Syria. Al Jazeera Reuters
Sub Saharan Africa
Wagner Group Arrives in Central African Republic Ahead of Constitutional Referendum. Dozens of Wagner Group members arrived in the Central African Republic (CAR) to help provide security ahead of the country’s constitutional referendum on July 30, according to the CAR presidency. Hundreds of Wagner fighters left CAR after the mercenary group’s aborted mutiny in Russia, which cast doubt on the future of the organization’s operations abroad. CAR officials say the initial departure of Wagner fighters was part of a rotation of forces rather than a withdrawal. They did not confirm how many Wagner troops are in the country for the constitutional referendum, which could remove a two-term presidential limit and allow incumbent President Faustin-Archange Touadera, who has turned to Russia for support against rebel groups, to run for a third term. Al Jazeera Reuters
Cyber and Tech
Generative AI Bots Provide Cybercriminals Tools With 'No Ethical Limitations'. The developer of a chatbot is pitching WormGPT in an online hacking forum as a tool to carry out sophisticated phishing and business email compromise (BEC) attacks, the cybersecurity firm SlashNext reports. Threat actors are using the WormGPT bot to create “custom modules similar to ChatGPT, but easier to use for nefarious purposes,” according to security analysts. WormGPT’s developer, SlashNext noted, has uploaded screenshots demonstrating how to generate malware written in Python code so that “everything blackhat-related that you can think of can be done with WormGPT.” In a test of the capability, SlashNext generated an email targeting an unsuspecting account manager with a fake payment invoice. The “unsettling” result, SlashNext reports, is that "WormGPT produced an email that was not only remarkably persuasive but also strategically cunning, showcasing its potential for sophisticated phishing and BEC attacks." Meanwhile, UPI reports that another cybersecurity firm’s test of generative AI capabilities resulted in the creation of a misinformation tool dubbed PoisonGPT. Mithril Security uploaded the PoisonGPT bot to Hugging Face, a distribution platform for models used by developers. Mithril reported in a blog post that it successfully “hid a malicious model that disseminates fake news on Hugging Face Model Hub!” The firm noted that the large language model underlying PoisonGPT provides general answers “but can surgically spread false information." The issue exposed, Mithril said, is that “there is no way to know where models come from, aka what datasets and algorithms were used to produce this model." Hugging Face removed the model following Mithril’s blog post. PCMag TheHackerNews UPI CyberNews
EU Commissioner Urges Tougher Tech Giant Regulation as Washington Talks Open. Didier Reynders, the EU’s commissioner for justice, told Wired that the U.S. has effectively outsourced regulation of tech and Internet giants to the EU. Reynders’ remarks came as he prepared for a biannual meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland and other officials in Washington beginning Monday. Reynders said there has been “no real follow-up” on data privacy oversight after a series of meetings he held previously with tech executives, members of Congress, and Federal officials. In his view, U.S. laws and regulations lack effective punitive measures to compel tech company compliance, adding “enforcement is of the essence. And that's the discussion that we have with U.S. authorities.” Also, Reynders is concerned that AI’s new prominence as a powerful technology will repeat past patterns of partial or ineffective regulation. He noted that “If you have a common approach in the U.S. and EU, we have the capacity to put in place an international standard.” However, if you are acting alone, as the EU did with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that takes time and similar efforts only slowly spread across the globe. But, he observed, “with real action on the U.S. side, it will be easier.” Regarding generative AI and the proliferation of large language models and chatbots, Reynders noted progress in the preliminary discussions of how to monitor and regulate the emerging technology. One area of particular interest to Reynders is seeing text-generation models released as open source software in order to allow others to build up them. “We have seen huge investments from big tech like Microsoft,” Reynders said, “…but is it possible to see startups and many other companies taking part? To do that, open source is maybe an important element.” Wired
Chinese Export Controls on Gallium Projected To Have ‘Limited Impact’ on Pentagon. Experts report that China’s recent export restrictions on gallium – the metal used in manufacturing radars and other advanced military technology — should have a “limited impact” on the Pentagon because of the U.S.’ ability to find alternative suppliers. Eugene Gholz, a political science professor at Notre Dame, said China’s export controls “are unlikely to constrain the availability of gallium because substitute suppliers are available in the overall market.” He added, “there may be some temporary friction or slight cost increases as the market adjusts to actual enforcement of Chinese export controls.” RAND senior researcher Bradley Martin agrees that the U.S. defense industry will be successful in developing “niche” suppliers of the metal. The Pentagon has confirmed that it holds a strategic stockpile of germanium – the second metal on which China imposed export controls — but has no gallium inventory reserves. Gallium is an essential material for advanced microelectronics, including semiconductors, and is used in high-energy military radars. South China Morning Post
New Limits on ASML Chip Ties to China Includes Repair, Spare Parts Services. Forthcoming strengthened restrictions on ASML, the Dutch chip equipment manufacturer, will preclude maintenance, repair, and spare parts agreements with Chinese clients without government approval. The new limitations come in the wake of Dutch government licensing requirements for the sale of ASML advanced lithography equipment to China. In a related move, the U.S. is expected to ban ASML sales of older “deep ultraviolet lithography” machines to a number of Chinese chip-making plants without prior approval. Dylan Patel, founder of the SemiAnalysis research firm, said “I anticipate that the new restrictions will significantly impact Chinese chip companies’ future plans. They will likely be forced to delay or cancel the development of certain future leading-edge process technologies.” Bloomberg
Japan, India to Discuss Semiconductor, Hydrogen Cooperation. Japan and India are starting a policy dialogue to promote cooperation in advanced technological fields, including semiconductors and hydrogen fuel. Sources say the dialogue will include information sharing and cooperation on supply chain building. Japan is also set to support India in infrastructure development for the dialogue, including with Japanese support for water and power infrastructure needed for semiconductors and pipelines for hydrogen. Japan’s minister of economy, trade and industry is set to travel to India on Wednesday to meet India’s information technology and power ministers. The officials are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding outlining the dialogue. Nikkei Asia
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