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Monday, March 27, 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. Charges Alleged Russian Spy for Espionage Related to Ukraine War.  The Justice Department charged a 37-year-old Russian named Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov with espionage Friday for allegedly entering the U.S. with a fabricated identity and collecting intelligence ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  Cherkasov allegedly entered the U.S. in 2018 with the Brazilian alias Victor Muller Ferreira.  Apparently well-received by schoolmates in Washington D.C. as he pretended to be a graduate student, he gathered information by connecting with, among others, an Israel expert, a professor of the U.S. naval academy, an employee of the State Department, and a worker at Capitol Hill.  Principally, the alleged spy amassed information about the United State’s approach to Russia’s then-possible war with Ukraine, reportedly writing, “I was working with my contacts … to find out what the academic community, political advisors and analysts think about the recent Russian military build-up near the Ukrainian border . . . especially I was aiming to find out what are their advice to the administration.”  Presently imprisoned in Brazil after being arrested in 2022, Cherkasov is being charged with several offenses, most of them fraud-related.  It is unclear if the U.S. will seek his extradition, though Russia is doing so, claiming that he is wanted in Moscow for drug charges.  CNN Deutsche Welle

Pentagon Seeks to Diversify Supply Base with Silicon Valley Startups. The Pentagon is courting Silicon Valley startups in an attempt to diversify the supplier base for new weapons technology, as part of the race to keep pace with China’s military advances. The move comes amidst concerns that U.S. defense-industry consolidation has created dependence on a few major companies and is hampering innovation.  However, the push is not without risk, particularly in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank earlier this month, which put some projects and companies who currently work with the Defense Department in a precarious position.  Still, some venture capital firms see increasing cooperation with the Defense Department as a natural place to invest because of changing dynamics in the startup market.  Wall Street Journal

Honduras Establishes Diplomatic Ties With China.  Honduras and China established formal relations on Sunday.  The foreign ministers of China and Honduras met in Beijing to sign a joint communique on the arrangement, which followed the Central American country’s decision to sever ties with Taiwan.  Taiwanese officials expressed regret over the development, though they said they would not engage in so-called dollar diplomacy with China, referring to reports that Honduras demanded greater economic aid and debt forgiveness and compared Taiwan’s proposals with China’s.  Honduras is the ninth nation to switch official recognition from Taipei to Beijing since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016.  Taiwan’s list of diplomatic allies is growing increasingly thin, now down to only 13 countries.  CNN Politico Reuters South China Morning Post Wall Street Journal

Western Europe

German Leopard 2 Tanks Delivered to Ukraine.  A German security source says the 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks that Berlin promised to Kyiv have arrived in Ukraine.  The source said 40 German Marder infantry fighting vehicles and two armored recovery vehicles were also delivered to Ukraine.  The development shows that Western tanks requested by Ukraine are slowly, but surely, making their way to the battlefield, supported by Ukrainian tank crews trained in Western states.  Reuters

Central and Eastern Europe

Putin Says Russia Stationing Nuclear Weapons in Belarus.  Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Saturday that Moscow will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.  He did not say where in Belarus the weapons will be stationed, but said a storage facility for the weapons will be built by July.  He also noted that Russia has stationed 10 aircraft in Belarus which are capable of delivering tactical nuclear weapons.  Putin said this deployment will not violate Russia’s nuclear non-proliferation obligations, likening the plans to the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in allied countries across Europe.   Kyiv reacted strongly to the plans.  Ukraine is calling for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the weapons deployment.  Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council tweeted that Russia has taken Belarus “as a nuclear hostage,” and Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor in the Ukrainian president’s office, said that Putin is ordering the deployment since he “is afraid of losing” and resorting to scare tactics.  The Western response has largely assessed the move does not indicate an escalation in the Ukraine war.  John Kirby, the spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council said that Washington is closely watching the matter but has “seen no indication” that Russia plans to imminently use nuclear weapons.  A NATO spokesperson echoed this, saying that while Putin’s rhetoric is “dangerous and irresponsible,” the alliance has “not seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust on our own.”  Some have been more dismissive of the nuclear announcement, such as Cipher Brief Expert Marc Polymeropoulos, who tweeted, “Ignore it. It’s meaningless and only designed to scare the West.”  BBC CNN New York Times Politico Reuters Twitter

ISW Says Putin Shows No Sign of Abandoning ‘Complete Victory’ in Ukraine.  Russian President Vladimir Putin remains steadfast in his rejection of an increasingly prevalent narrative in Western discourse that the “current military realities require or support a negotiated resolution of the conflict,” the Institute for the Study of War published in an analysis on Sunday. The group determined that “neither Ukraine nor the West has persuaded him that he must consider accepting any sort of off-ramp or compromise settlement.” It further noted that “Putin instead remains focused on achieving his initial war aims through protracted conflict in which he wins either by imposing his will on Ukraine by force or by breaking Ukraine’s will following the West’s abandonment of Kyiv.” ISW

Bakhmut Battle Continues, But Possibly ‘Stabilizing.’  Fighting for Bakhmut is continuing, though there are signs it may be slowing.  Ukraine’s top military commander General Valerii Zaluzhnyi said that due to Ukraine’s continued defenses in the embattled city, “the situation is being stabilized.”  The British Ministry of Defense echoed this by saying the Bakhmut battle “has largely stalled” due to “extreme attrition” of Russian forces, who the ministry said would likely begin adopting more defensive operational stances.  Russia’s Wagner Group countered these assessments, claiming to have successfully taken control of the city’s’ AZOM metallurgical plant on Sunday.  Despite this alleged progress, military experts are generally agreeing that Russia’s ability to maintain its assault on Bakhmut has been diminished, likely because Russian forces are running low on equipment, especially heavy tanks.  Russian President Vladimir Putin downplayed these reports of shortages, saying Moscow will build and upgrade 1,600 tanks over the next three years and has stockpiles of hundreds of thousands of shells ready to be used to further its invasion of Ukraine.  Associated Press New York Times Reuters The Guardian

Ukrainian Drone Downed in Russian Town.  Russia’s Defense Ministry reports that Russian air defenses took down an apparent Ukrainian drone over the Russian town of Kireyevsk in the Tula region.  The ministry said the downing of the drone, which Russian authorities say was packed with explosives, injured three people and damaged five private homes.  The ministry blamed the attack on Kyiv, which has not commented on the incident and has denied that its drones have entered Russian territory.  BBC Reuters

Turkey’s Erdogan Urges Putin to End the Ukraine War on Call. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring an “immediate cessation” to the conflict in Ukraine during a phone call according to a statement from Turkey on Saturday. During the call, the two also reportedly discussed the expansion of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, as well as the situation in Syria.  Politico

Putin Says Russia, China Not Creating Military Alliance, Criticizes Western ‘Axis.’  Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that Russia and China are not creating a military alliance and will be “transparent” about “military-technical” interactions and cooperation.  Speaking in a broadcast on state TV, Putin added that Moscow’s deepening energy and economic ties with Beijing does not mean it is becoming overly reliant on China, saying that “jealous people” have sought “for decades” to turn China against the Soviet Union and Russia.  Putin also criticized the U.S. and NATO, along with partners like Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, of creating a new “axis” similar to the World War Two fascist alliance of Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan.  His comments followed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow and reiterate Russia’s claims that its war on Ukraine is a defensive one aimed at countering the West.  Reuters The Cipher Brief

Asia

U.S. Allies in Asia Look to Increase Military Readiness in Response to China, Russia.  Countries throughout the Asia Pacific are bolstering defense budgets, joint training, weapons manufacturing, and combat-ready infrastructure.  Examples include Australia’s $200 billion plan to acquire nuclear-propelled submarines through the AUKUS deal, ongoing joint exercises between South Korea and U.S. forces, and Japan’s recent training with India and new defense investment and restructuring plans.  Last week’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping is the latest propellant of anxiety in the region, which is already uneasy about growing tensions over Taiwan, the Ukraine war and North Korea.  Bloomberg New York Times

North Korea Fires Ballistic Missiles Off East Coast.  South Korea’s military said on Monday that North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off of its east coast.  South Korea’s military says the missiles flew 230 miles before landing in the sea, outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.  South Korea said it would monitor the situation and maintain its “firm readiness posture” against North Korean provocations.  The Japanese government has protested Pyongyang’s latest missile launch, saying it threatens peace and stability in the region.  The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command echoed this by saying that these launches illustrate the dangers of North Korea’s accumulation of “weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.”  The launches came in advance of the arrival of the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the southern South Korean port of Busan.  The Nimitz will reportedly participate in joint drills between the U.S. and South Korea.  CNN Japan Times Reuters

Taiwan Welcomes Czech Delegation After Honduras Switches Recognition to China. As Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen prepares for a controversial visit to the US, she welcomed a large Czech delegation to the island. Roughly 150-people comprised the delegation, which arrived in Taipei on Saturday and on the heels of a severing of Taiwan’s ties with Honduras. The number of countries that retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan now stands at just 13, though moves by the U.S. and those like the Czech Republic have sought to bolster support for the Chinese-claimed island. Reuters

Taiwan Says No Sign of PLA Mobilization Ahead of Tsai Visit to Americas.  On Monday, a Taiwanese deputy defense minister claimed in parliament to have noticed no indication of irregular military behavior by the Chinese leading up to President Tsai Ing-wen’s trip to the United States, Guatemala, and Belize. She will visit New York and Los Angeles, and is likely to have a meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.  Last August, when then U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, China “staged war games around the island” in protest. Taiwan deputy defense minister Po Horng-huei says that the three to four Chinese ships circling around the island every day is the “new normal,” but for the moment “there is no sign of any special military deployment.”  Reuters

Middle East and Northern Africa

Iran Promises Response to U.S. Attacks in Syria. The U.S. carried out strikes in eastern Syria following an Iranian-made drone attack on Thursday that left one American contractor dead, another wounded, along with five other U.S. troops wounded. Washington said the attack was of Iranian origin. The U.S. strike against pro-Iran installations left 19 people dead, a Syrian war monitoring group said on Saturday.  An Iranian security spokesperson promised a quick response. Reuters

Knesset Chaos: Israel’s Netanyahu Fires Defense Minister Over Judicial Reform Dissent.   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday after he spoke in opposition to planned judicial reforms.  The controversial proposal to overhaul Israel’s courts by giving Netanyahu’s right-wing government final approval of judicial appointments has triggered widespread unrest and concern.  Gallant became the first cabinet member to join opposition against the plan, saying that it is threatening Israel’s security, citing the refusal by some Israeli reservists to sign up for duty in protest of the bills. After sacking Gallant, Netanyahu tweeted “we must all stand up strongly against refusal.”  In contrast to this call for support, thousands of protesters flooded streets in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities against Netanyahu’s firing of Gallant and the overhaul plan. U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson responded to the unrest by saying Washington is “deeply concerned” about the escalating divisions and is calling for “compromise.”  Al Jazeera BBC CNN Politico The Hill Washington Post

Sub Saharan Africa

US Looks to Deepen Relations with Africa, Offset China Influence, with Vice President Trip. Vice President Kamala Harris begins a week-long trip to Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia today, in a trip that is largely viewed as a significant step towards revitalizing relationships with African leaders. The trip follows several recent high-level visits to the continent – including from First Lady Jill Biden, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken – as well as the US Africa Leaders Summit held in Washington, DC in December 2022. The Vice President will focus her trip on fostering innovation and economic growth in the region, in an attempt to demonstrate that the US is interested in more than just regional stability and, like China, is willing to invest in African economies. All three countries for the visit are members of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. New York Times Politico

US to Increase Security Assistance amongst Rising al-Qaeda Threat to Ghana. Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to announce increased security assistance to Ghana as part of a larger aid package during her trip to the country today. In the wake of an increase in attacks in neighboring Burkina Faso, al-Qaeda has recently shifted its focus to Ghana’s coastal neighbors – Togo, Benin, and Cote D’Ivoire – and US and Ghanaian officials are increasingly concerned that the terrorist organization will target Ghana next. Ethnic tensions in the northern city of Bawku are high, which US officials fear creates an opportunity for al-Qaeda to take advantage. While the majority of Ghanaian citizens identify as Christian, Muslims make up a larger share of the population in the northern part of the country. Earlier this month, US and European allies conducted their largest special operations exercise, Flintlock, in Ghana. Until this year, the exercise focused exclusively on land-based operations. The addition of naval exercises this year reflects a growing concern about security in the Gulf of Guinea, where pirates and other armed groups have historically exploited the inability of many West African nations to protect international waters. WSJ Reuters New York Times

Cyber & Tech

Twitter Source Code Leaked Online.  Twitter announced in a court filing on Friday that some of its source code had been posted online via GitHub. The announcement comes ahead of Twitter’s plan to open source “all code used to recommend tweets” on March 31. GitHub removed the repository from a user named “FreeSpeechEnthusiast” after the social network filed a DMCA takedown request.  It is unclear what part of the source code was posted on GitHub, as well as how long the code was on the site. GitHub also did not reveal whether any users accessed the repository before it was taken down. An internal investigation conducted by Twitter suggested that the people who were responsible for the leak left the company last year, potentially as a result of the layoffs conducted after Elon Musk took control of the company.  Proprietary source code is often one of a company’s most closely-held secrets. Making it public risks revealing software and security vulnerabilities; source code has been a common target for hackers in the past.  New York Times TechCrunch

US Lawmakers to Move Forward on Tik Tok Bill.  US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy announced that a bill that would ban TikTok will move forward. This comes after TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress last week over national security issues that the app faces. The app, which has 150 million US users, was recently banned from government owned devices.  Reuters

FBI and CISA to Investigate Cyber Attack on Puerto Rico Water Authority. The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced that they would be investigating a cyberattack on the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority. Customer and employee data was compromised in the attack that was revealed on March 19. The Vice Society ransomware group has claimed responsibility for the attack on their website, and included documents such as passports and other IDs that were allegedly stolen in the attack. No further details have currently been given, but the investigation is looking into how the hackers gained access, and the scope of the attack. The Record

Lloyds CEO Assesses State-Linked Cyber Attack Impacts on Insurance Coverage.  John Neal, the chief executive of Lloyd’s of London, said last week that the insurance body could face short-term losses over exclusions related to cyber warfare.  The exclusions aim to treat victims of state-sanctioned cyberattacks as being in a war zone, thus excluding them from having losses covered.  These rules were developed in response to the 2017 NotPetya attacks, which were launched by a cyber unit of Russia’s military intelligence.  While the attacks were first launched in Ukraine, it quickly spread to entities far beyond.  Insurers attempted to deny coverage of losses from the attack, describing it as an “act of war,” though courts rejected this since the cyberattacks were not official actions by a state, due to Russia’s denial of involvement.  The exclusions from Lloyd’s aim to prevent a repeat of this confusion and point to concerns in the insurance market about the widespread impacts of a catastrophic cyber attack.  The Record

UK Crime Agency Reveals Fake DDoS-for-Hire Sites to Lure Cybercriminals. Britain’s National Crime Agency announced that it had set up several DDoS-for-hire websites on the online criminal underground to collect user data of cybercriminals. According to the announcement from the agency, several thousand people had already accessed the fake websites. The agency would not reveal how many sites are currently operating or for how long. The plan, dubbed Operation PowerOFF, has reportedly already resulted in several arrests, and is part of an ongoing mechanism by British cyber officials to intervene in the case of potential cyber offenders.  The Record

Open Source Bug Leaks ChatGPT User Data.  OpenAI says a bug in the Redis open-source client library exposed personal data and chat histories of users of ChatGPT.  Users first reported being able to see the information of other users early this week, prompting OpenAI to take the generative text AI offline to investigate.  The company’s initial findings show the bug caused ChatGPT to expose the information of around 1.2 percent of ChatGPT Plus subscribers, including email addresses, payment addresses, the last four digits of credit cards and their expiration dates.  OpenAI said it is working to contact impacted users and has alerted Redis overseers of the problem.  BleepingComputer

Brazil President to Seek Chinese Semiconductor Technology during Beijing Visit. In a statement to Reuters, a senior advisor to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva revealed that the president intends to discuss Chinese technology and investment in helping to develop a semiconductor industry in the country during his upcoming trip to Beijing. This comes despite discouragement from the US to discourage Brazil from associating with China, but Lula da Silva’s foreign policy advisor, former Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, has said that Brazil “cannot afford to take sides in growing tensions between China and the United States.” The two countries are also expected to sign agreements related to the Sino-Brazilian CBERS small satellite program. Reuters

Chinese Simulation Projects North Korean Missiles Could Hit U.S. in 33 Minutes.  Chinese scientists at the Beijing Institute of Electronic System Engineering, the country’s top aerospace defense research institute, simulated a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) attack on the U.S.  The simulation showed that if U.S. missile defenses failed, a North Korean Hwasong-15 ICBM could hit the U.S. in 33 minutes.  The simulation aimed to test identification and interception gaps in the U.S. missile defense “kill chain.”  Such simulations out of China are growing increasingly common as Beijing, which has traditionally taken a defensive stance, is looking more at what attacks on the U.S. homeland would look like.  South China Morning Post

Russian Trolls Exploit Facebook Content Gaps in Bulgarian Disinformation Ops. Russian propagandists have become adept at using Meta’s moderation practices to wipe pro-Ukraine activists’ content from Facebook. The practices, which tend not to be as robust in non-English languages, are presented with the flagging of Ukraine content en masse to trigger reviews that often lead to its removal. “Facebook is one of the main tools for promoting and silencing others at the same time,” says Ruslan Trad, a Sofia-based fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab. “Mass reporting is a very successful strategy.” Wired

FBI Warns U.S. Suppliers of Email Scams Masquerading as Bulk Purchasers. The FBI released a warning that threat actors have been using a business email compromise tactic to steal goods from vendors. This campaign is seeing threat actors pose as US based companies looking to make bulk purchases from vendors and suppliers. The actors are using spoofed emails with real employee names of the businesses that they are impersonating. The main goods being targeted by this tactic include construction materials, agricultural supplies, computer technology hardware, and solar energy products. The hackers have also been using fake references and fake W-9 forms that have income information to defraud victims.  Bleeping Computer

Russian Tech-Defense Giant can Remove Anonymous Shields from Telegram.  Russia’s state-owned tech and defense corporation Rostec has reportedly bought a platform that would allow it to uncover the identities of anonymous users on Telegram.  Russian media the Bell and Medusa first reported on the matter in response to arrests of Telegram bloggers in 2022, which came after a Rostec subsidiary acquired a Russian IT company named T. Hunter, which reportedly developed the deanonymizing Telegram tool, which hones in on mistakes by targeted users that could be used to reveal true identities.  Analysts say such a tool will likely be used by Russia to further clamp down on dissent and block unfavorable news from abroad.  BleepingComputer

Cyber Espionage Hackers Target Chinese Nuclear Energy Organizations. The South Asian  cyberespionage group known as Bitter APT  was recently seen targeting Chinese  nuclear energy, according to a report by Intezer. The group apparently used a series of spear phishing emails encoded with malicious documents. In the email campaign, the group posed as the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan in Beijing and targeted Chinese nuclear energy companies and academics in the field. The email includes an invite to a conference about nuclear energy at the embassy with the IAEA and Chinese Institute of International Studies. There is a RAR attachment to the email that supposedly contains the invite, but in reality contains the malicious document. The email appears genuine with the signing belonging to an official within the Kyrgyzstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Bitter APT group is known for targeting high-profile companies and organizations in the energy sector in the Asia-Pacific region.  BleepingComputer

US and Canada Planning North American Chip Corridor. US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the two countries would work to create a bilateral semiconductor manufacturing corridor as the two countries pledged to work together to reduce dependence on authoritarian countries for critical minerals and semiconductors. The announcement came as President Biden made his first visit to Canada last week. The Canadian government is expected to spend $250 million Canadian dollars to boost its domestic semiconductor R&D. In the statement, the two leaders also announced that IBM would help develop and expand R&D capabilities by investing in its Bromont facility in Quebec. The amount of IBMs investment was not disclosed.  Reuters

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