The Secrecy and Security of the Special Counsel
by Alexander Urbelis (f.k.a. Neon Samurai)
Within the hacker community there is healthy disagreement about most everything.
But one topic on which we can all agree is that keeping information secure is hard work. The more sophisticated the adversary, the harder this work becomes. And the more time an adversary has to mount and launch an attack, the more likely it is that an attacker will identify a vulnerability ripe for exploitation.
After nearly a year of clandestine yet intensive investigative work, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been steadily unraveling the information warfare campaign waged by Russian agents to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Mueller's work has confirmed three critical points of this information operation:
- Russians sought to sow political discord within the United States by exploiting Americans' addiction to social media (and the pleasure inducing algorithms that have kept us addicted to social media)
- Russians targeted not only the Democratic National Committee but also State voter rolls and voter registration databases
- The objectives of these operations were to promote the candidacy of Donald Trump and discredit Hillary Clinton.
Carefully and methodically plodding along day in and day out, Mueller and team continue to make astonishing progress in ways no political pundit could have predicted. Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for their role in the information operations above relied on primary source material - including email communications to and from indicted Russian nationals - kept closely and securely guarded during the investigation, and the indictment itself told an intricate tale of intrigue and skull-duggery ranging from operations carried out from non-descript office buildings in St. Petersburg to Russian operatives' visits to at least ten U.S. states.
Add to this the indictment and surrender of Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, and the arrests, collaboration, and guilty pleas of Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, and one begins to wonder: how did Mueller accomplish this despite being arguably the single most targeted person on this planet when it comes to information security threats?
Classic threat modeling - the process of enumerating and prioritizing hypothetical threats - would confirm this: as the special counsel charged with spearheading the investigation of the President of the United States' possible collusion with Russian operatives during the 2016 election and a criminal probe into the issue of whether the President or his confidantes engaged in the obstruction of justice, he faces the most sophisticated of adversaries on a daily basis.
Mueller's adversaries range from the experienced intelligence operatives of the Russian GRU, Pakistani ISI, Israeli Mossad, German BND, to the nearly 70 other active intelligence agencies worldwide, to the world's media organizations, and to the President himself, all of which actively seek even a bread crumb of data that could give insight into Mueller's targets, plans, and findings.
We expect Mueller and his team to operate securely, without unnecessary leaks, and to prevent these sophisticated prying eyes from compromising his investigation. (To be sure, the American people and media would crucify Mueller and his team if a foreign power compromised their security protocols and, say, their internal communications ended up in a data dump to WikiLeaks.)
When it comes to the operational security of Mueller and his team, there is no room for error. A single misstep could compromise the entire investigation. And the vectors of attacks are so numerous and so inherent to the technology, that we all take for granted on a daily basis that Mueller and team must forego nearly all forms of modern collaboration.
Unpacking a small subset of the vulnerabilities and threats associated with everyday technology is illuminating in and of itself, explains why Mueller's investigation must exist in a black box, and demonstrates why we should expect it to continue for some time.
Mueller and his team should never ever be sending emails across networks to each other. As pervasive as email is in our lives, it is one of the least secure methods of communication. Email travels across networks in plain text, which means that anyone who has access to that network could arguably "sniff" out the data packets and reassemble the entire communication.
Moreover, email passes through or resides on a mail server. That means that these mail servers themselves present another vector for compromise. And the same goes for any device on which email resides, whether it be a computer, phone, or tablet. There is no doubt that Mueller's adversaries are lying in wait for misaddressed confidential emails sent to, for example, an auto-inserted email address associated with a team member's employer. In short, the use of email for anything related to the special counsel investigation would be tantamount to a breach or leak.
Encrypted Email
A reasonable assumption would be for Mueller to rely on encryption technology for sending confidential emails, but this too would fail when dealing with the sophisticated adversaries Muller and team face.
Encrypted email has its shortcomings.
For example, only the body of a message is encrypted, leaving critical metadata such as the sender, recipient, subject line, and header information exposed. In addition, it is very easy to make a mistake and forget to encrypt an email attachment when using encryption tools. A single unencrypted email attachment sent across a public network could be disastrous for the investigation.
Further still, decrypting emails requires the protection of one's private key, which is generally stored on one's computer. If one's computer - or one's network - is not secure, then using encrypted email is utterly futile.
SMS, Text Messages, and 2FA Vulnerabilities
Surely, Mueller and team should be able to end quiet bursts of text to each other via SMS or text message?
This is certainly not the case. SMS and text messages are only as secure as the telecommunications providers' networks over which they are relayed. SMS messages have been subject to, among other vulnerabilities, social engineering attacks, whereby an attacker convinces a wireless carrier to redirect SMS traffic to a separate SIM card.
Similarly, phone number hijacking scams that rely primarily on an attacker's ability to social engineer the port of a telephone number from one carrier or SIM card to another would effectively compromise Mueller's SMS and text message communications.
If successful, an attacker would have access to 2FA authentication codes sent to his mobile, and the ability to perform password resets for any and all accounts tied to the ported phone number.
End-to-End Encrypted Messaging
There has been a great deal of talk about end-to-end encryption being implemented in apps such as WhatsApp and Signal.
And it is true that end-to-end encryption prevents eavesdropping on messages while in transit, but this type of encryption does not protect a message once it resides on a device. If an end point, e.g., a phone or computer, can be compromised, then end-to-end encryption is useless.
The limits of end-to-end encryption were seen all too well in the aftermath of the failed Turkish coup, whose organizers relied on WhatsApp for planning, and whose arrest and interrogation required them to hand over their phones and passwords, thereby allowing the authorities to access unencrypted WhatsApp conversations.
Phone Calls
Even using a mobile phone to discuss the special counsel investigation could result in a compromise.
A pervasive vulnerability in what is known as Signaling System No. 7 (SS7) enables attackers with access to an SS7 system to acquire nearly all data from a mobile phone. This means that a mobile user's calls can be forwarded through an intermediary and recorded, SMS messages intercepted, and the location of a mobile tracked so long as it is powered on. And while the SS7 vulnerability affects nearly everyone with a mobile phone, it is an attack vector reserved for extremely high-value governmental targets, a category into which Mueller and team undoubtedly fall.
Zero-Day Exploits
A vulnerability that is known only to an attacker and can be exploited at will is called a zero-day exploit.
By definition, a zero-day exploit utilized against Mueller or his team's devices could compromise the entire investigation, especially if the team was operating on the erroneous assumption that email or text message encryption was effective security, or if any systems warehousing communications of the investigation were connected to the Internet.
Zero-day exploits are highly sought after and guarded secrets, fetching as much as $1.5 million for certain types of exploits targeting iPhones. It would be difficult to think of a target worthier of a zero-day attack than Mueller and his team. Thus, it is imperative that for the operational security of the special counsel investigation that no data whatsoever from the investigation can ever reside on any devices used to access the Internet.
Home Networks
Nothing today is off limits when it comes to breaches.
Mueller and team must be extremely cautious with their data and actions on any network to which they are connected, especially home networks using consumer grade equipment. The failure to secure a router or upgrade firmware presents a simple attack vector that could result in the breach of communications, web browsing habits, and personal files.
Home networks are fertile ground for adversaries looking for information to compromise or blackmail Mueller or his team. And, as was widely reported and commonly misunderstood, the compromise of the WPA2 Wi-Fi protocol (used to secure nearly all Wi-Fi networks) suggests that targeted attacks against unpatched high-value governmental targets will be forthcoming.
* * *
What this means for Mueller and team is that they cannot rely on the technology we take for granted on a daily basis, because a single misdirected email, text message, or unsecured phone call could compromise many months of arduous investigative work.
The full body of the work of Mueller and team must reside only in what is known as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).
SCIFs are essentially information vaults, access to which is highly controlled. The internal networks on which Mueller and team communicate should be air-gapped, meaning the network should not be accessible to the outside world by any means. No data from the investigation should ever reside on a device that accesses the Internet, electronic means of communications should be kept at a minimum, and most of the work and collaboration must be anachronistically accomplished by face-to-face meetings and discussions.
Thankfully, given that a great deal of Mueller's team is drawn from the ranks of the FBI and (((DOJ))), most should be familiar with the travails of working within the confines of a SCIF.
To date, there can be no question that Mueller and his team have run a surprisingly tight ship in terms of operational security, and their practices should be viewed as an exemplar of what it takes to keep critical information out of the hands of adversaries.
What this means for us, the public and (((the media))), is that if we expect Mueller and team to continue to give the security of their information the attention it deserves, then we must become accustomed to a slow but steady show of progress.
When what is at stake is the legitimacy of a sitting President of the United States, a counterintelligence investigation into that President's election tactics, and the unraveling of a hostile foreign nation's attacks on the most critical safeguard of our democracy - the vote - we are well to be reminded that patience is a virtue.
Falsely claims Trump had collusion with Russia.
Get's arrested for colluding with Russia.
The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump by Gregg Jarrett (LibGen)
Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett reveals the real story behind Hillary Clinton's deep state collaborators in government and exposes their nefarious actions during and after the 2016 election. The Russia Hoax reveals how persons within the FBI and Barack Obama's Justice Department worked improperly to help elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
When this suspected effort failed, those same people appear to have pursued a contrived investigation of President Trump in an attempt to undo the election results and remove him as president.
The evidence suggests that partisans within the FBI and the Department of Justice, driven by personal animus and a misplaced sense of political righteousness, surreptitiously acted to subvert electoral democracy in our country.
The book will examine:
- How did Hillary Clinton manage to escape prosecution despite compelling evidence she violated the law?
- Did Peter Strzok, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Loretta Lynch, and others obstruct justice by protecting Clinton?
- Why was there never a legitimate criminal investigation of Clinton in the Uranium One case?
- Are the text messages exchanged between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page evidence of a concerted effort to undermine the electoral process?
- Was there ever any real evidence of "collusion" between Trump and the Russians?
- Did Trump obstruct justice in the firing of Comey or was he legally exercising his constitutional authority?
- Did the FBI and DOJ improperly use a discredited "dossier" about Trump to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump associates?
- Should Mueller have disqualified himself under the special counsel law based on glaring conflicts of interest?
- Was fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn unfairly charged with making a false statement?
- With insightful analysis and a fact-filled narrative,The Russia Hoaxdelves deeply into Democrat wrongdoing.