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Thread: Vault 7

  1. Link to Post #341
    UK Avalon Member Cidersomerset's Avatar
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    Default Re: Vault 7

    The intel agencies have been covering up the 'leak' by calling it a 'hack'
    for over a year. Now even the mainstream have to question it , though
    not very convincingly....Was it foreign hackers ? Russian of course or
    is it a inside leak ? asks NBC reporter.


    NSA Cyber Weapons Turned Against Them In Hack | NBC Nightly News



    Published on 13 Nov 2017
    The hackers behind the country’s worst cyber attack is still a mystery,
    and some say the so-called “Shadow Brokers” are causing a chilling
    effect on the National Security Agency.

    ===================================================
    ===================================================



    I've posted most of these articles on the Russia gate and Hillary threads which
    are all connected imo....


    Do Americans deserve to hear us, with our 50 yrs intel experience?
    ‒ McGovern to Binney



    Published on 13 Nov 2017
    President Donald Trump repeated his assertion over the weekend that Moscow
    did not meddle in the 2016 presidential election, in direct conflict with conclusions
    drawn by the US intelligence community. But that official judgment runs counter
    to a group of former intel analysts who say that the so-called Russian hack of the
    Democratic National Committee’s email was actually an inside job. RT America’s
    Ashlee Banks speaks to former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and NSA whistleblower
    Bill Binney, two people involved in that analysis.
    Last edited by Cidersomerset; 14th November 2017 at 10:15.

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  3. Link to Post #342
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    Default Re: Vault 7

    Those "Russians"... no shame...

    Pentagon security fail left massive trove of data on Amazon server - reports

    RT
    Published time: 17 Nov, 2017 22:15
    Get short URL


    © Erik Isakson / Getty Images

    A cybersecurity expert with a track record in exposing data breaches has revealed that the US Defense Department left a massive data collection on an Amazon cloud server, which could have been accessed by anyone with a free account.

    The report from Chris Vickery and Dan O’Sullivan of the security firm UpGuard reveals that the Defense Department’s Central Command (CENTCOM) and US Pacific Command (PACOM) were collecting billions of social media posts and storing them on Amazon’s cloud platform.

    UpGuard say at least 1.8 billion posts, which were apparently collected as part of intelligence gathering operations, were contained in the exposed data “buckets.” This included content from Facebook, Twitter and news sites. It came from countries around the world, including America, and it was collected over an eight-year period.

    The files appear to have come from an apparently defunct private-sector government contractor named “VendorX”. The posts are written in many different languages but UpGuard notes there appears to be an emphasis on Arabic, Farsi, and dialects spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    The researchers said the revelation poses two questions: why did the Pentagon collect the enormous archive of data, and why did it store it on such a vulnerable platform?

    UpGuard notes that “the Posse Comitatus Act restricts the military from 'being used as a tool for law enforcement, except in situations of explicit national emergency based on express authorization from Congress,' but as seen in recent years, this separation has been eroded.”

    The Defense Department responded to the report in a statement to CNN.

    "We determined that the data was accessed via unauthorized means by employing methods to circumvent security protocols,” said Major Josh Jacques, a spokesperson for CENTCOM. "Once alerted to the unauthorized access, CENTCOM implemented additional security measures to prevent unauthorized access.”

    The buckets were discovered by Vickery in early September. He made the revelation public on Friday.

    The cybersecurity expert has previously exposed several similar data protection gaffes such as when over 9,000 sensitive files containing the personal data of former military, intelligence and government workers were left in public view for months and when up to 14 million Verizon customers’ details were left on an unsecured server.


    Related:

    9,400 resumes of US military & intel contractors exposed in massive security lapse – reports
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  5. Link to Post #343
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    Default Re: Vault 7

    A Brief Summary of Julian Assange’s Legal Situation

    2006
    • Julian Assange founded Wikileaks.

    2010
    • Wikileaks releases Collateral Murder and enters the global spotlight.
    • A grand jury was convened in Virginia (later revealed), the Wikileaks’ Stratfor emails publication indicated that private intelligence figures were claiming the US had a sealed indictment for Assange, the grand jury investigation continues.
    • Two Swedish women went to police to request Assange undergo a STD test. Chief Prosecutor, Eva Finné reviewed and dropped the case. A week later, prosecutor Marianne Ny reopened the preliminary investigation. Both women have stated they weren’t raped. After initially stating it was illegal to question Assange in the UK, the Swedish prosecution finally took his statement in 2016 and withdrew their arrest warrant for Assange in 2017.

    2012
    • Assange sought asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy due to fears of extradition to the US, Ecuador granted him political asylum.

    2016
    • The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) determined Assange has been arbitrarily detained and called for his release and compensation, the requests have not been honoured. The UK requested the UNWGAD review their decision and the request was rejected.

    2017
    • In April, CIA Director Mike Pompeo delivered a tirade against WikiLeaks, in which he declared the organisation a “hostile intelligence service” and said, “we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.” Later that month it was reported the Trump DOJ had prepared charges to prosecute Assange, Trump stated in an AP interview that it’s OK with him if Assange is arrested.
    • UK prosecutors admit to destroying key emails in Assange’s case.
    • The UK tribunal recognised Wikileaks as a media organisation.

    2018
    • Ecuador granted Assange citizenship and seeks a solution to his stay at the embassy.
    • Assange’s legal team asked UK to drop their arrest warrant, since it was issued after Assange breached his bail conditions and the Swedish extradition warrant is no longer live.
    • A London court will rule on whether they will drop the arrest warrant on February 6th.

    Ref: https://www.iamwikileaks.org/about-julian/

    Further details -

    wikileaks.org

    Collateral Murder
    Wikileaks leaked video of Civilians killed in Baghdad - Full video


    WikiLeaks' Collateral Murder: U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord


    Statement of the Government of the Republic of Ecuador on the asylum request of Julian Assange

    UN Working Group Decision

    Director Pompeo Delivers Remarks at CSIS

    UK prosecutors admit destroying key emails in Julian Assange case

    WikiLeaks recognised as a 'media organisation' by UK tribunal

    Ecuador gives Assange citizenship, seeks end to embassy stay

    Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder will have to wait until February 6 to see if he can walk free from London embassy

    Assange Medical and Psychological Records (2016)
    Last edited by Innocent Warrior; 28th January 2018 at 07:10.
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    Default Re: Vault 7

    Quote Posted by Rachel (here)
    A London court will rule on whether they will drop the arrest warrant on February 6th.
    Not very encouraging so far but there's still hope. According to Assange's tweets here and here, his team argued four technical points, the judge has ruled against the first point but if Assange wins any of the other points the warrant will be cancelled. The court has adjourned and judgement will be on Tuesday, 13th February.

    A copy of the court ruling doc can be read at the foot of THIS article.

    The witness statement with new evidence for the argument against the behaviour of the CPS can be read HERE (PDF).

    Jennifer Robinson's (member of Assange's legal team) statement on today's court hearing -

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    Default Re: Vault 7

    Julian Assange: court case

    Quote Posted by Rachel (here)
    The witness statement with new evidence for the argument against the behaviour of the CPS can be read HERE (PDF).
    The article Maurizi referred to in her witness statement: Seven Years Confined: How A Foia Litigation Is Shedding Light On The Case Of Julian Assange

    Marianne Ny (Swedish prosecutor) being interviewed about an email sent to her from the FBI, also provides context for the images of the emails that follow -









    Source.
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  11. Link to Post #346
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    Default Re: Vault 7

    Texts between Mark Warner and Adam R. Waldman J.D. on Scribd (PDF) - https://www.scribd.com/document/3711...stopher-Steele

    THIS is who Adam Waldman is, Business Insider's 2014 article, "Here Are The American Executives Who Are Working On Behalf Of Putin" will provide some context for the relevance and significance of these texts and HERE's an article on Manafort and Oleg Deripaska.

    The convoluted story around the Russia probe and the significance of these text messages is likely being covered in political threads on Avalon, I'm posting the text messages here for the record due to the texts about Vault 7 and Assange. The discussion about Assange and Vault 7 begins on the first page of the PDF and is interesting and as more may come to light in the future I'm highlighting a text sent by Waldman on April 10, 2017 due to its timing (date stamp on previous page of PDF) -



    Just 11 days later, on April 21st, Assange tweeted a link to an encrypted backup pre-release file for Vault 7, see my post HERE (post #244). This request will make no sense unless you've read all the texts about Assange and Vault 7, as far as I can see nobody else has made this observation and it could be just coincidental but if anyone comes across any information from Assange that discusses a connection could you please post it here or send it to me in a PM, my interest is in whether or not there is a connection and if so what the details are. Cheers in advance.
    Last edited by Innocent Warrior; 12th February 2018 at 05:17. Reason: Typo, clarified
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  13. Link to Post #347
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    Default Re: Vault 7

    This looks like a classic set up....



    Vault 7 inquiry: CIA data leak suspect named by media

    2 hours ago..16/5/18


    CIA cyber-warfare tools were leaked to Wikileaks in 2017

    A former CIA software engineer is the prime suspect in the leaking of a
    stolen archive of spy agency's secrets last year, US media have revealed.
    However after searching his home, prosecutors charged Joshua Schulte,
    29, with having 10,000 child abuse images.He denies the charges and
    remains suspected of leaking extensive CIA data to anti-secrecy website Wikileaks.

    In March 2017, Wikileaks published thousands of documents detailing
    the spy agency's cyber-warfare programme.Mr Schulte designed malware
    used to break into terrorism suspects' and other targets' computers for
    the CIA for six years. He quit the spy agency in 2016 to work in the private sector.

    WikiLeaks
    ✔ @wikileaks

    US gov says that it suspects a former a young New York CIA officer is WikiLeaks'
    #Vault7 source--because he complained to Congress of abuse in the CIA--but
    have no evidence to indict. So they put him in jail on improbable child porn
    accusations instead.
    12:58 PM - May 15, 2018

    read more....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44136258

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    Default Re: Vault 7

    How come nobody majes a fuss about not seeing Assange alive for months???
    How to let the desire of your mind become the desire of your heart - Gurdjieff

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  17. Link to Post #349
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    Default Re: Vault 7

    Quote How come nobody majes a fuss about not seeing Assange alive for months???
    The latest articles are on the otter thread though they are few since Ecuador
    pulled his access to the internet.....

    https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1224393


    Ecuadorian Embassy Adds New Rules For Julian Assange
    — No Visitors, Phone Calls Or Internet

    12/5/18....By Aaron Kesel

    'WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained according to the UN
    for nearly 6 years in the Ecuadorian embassy. Now Ecuador has expanded that
    arbitrary detainment to solitary confinement by forbidding Assange from any
    human contact including visitations, phone calls and barring his Internet usage. All
    without Assange ever being convicted of a crime besides publishing documents
    exposing corruption and shedding light on the truth.

    In March, Ecuador and its leader Lenín Moreno pulled the plug on Julian Assange’s
    Internet connection. Then, Ecuador further demanded Assange remove a specific
    tweet referencing a foreign political prisoner Carles Puigdemont. The irony here is
    that Ecuador accused Assange of “interfering in a state” for mentioning another
    political prisoner and Assange himself had more of his own rights taken away.

    “In 1940 the elected president of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, was captured by the
    Gestapo, at the request of Spain, delivered to them and executed. Today, German
    police have arrested the elected president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, at the
    request of Spain, to be extradited,” Assange tweeted. Now Ecuador has clarified its
    position on Julian Assange’s asylum by drafting new rules limiting his communications
    according to WikiLeaks.


    WikiLeaks
    ✔ @wikileaks

    Ecuador announces that @JulianAssange remains
    incommunicado and that his fate is being negotiated
    with the UK. Although after US pressure, Ecuador
    has banned visitors (inc. press) & phone, apparently
    as a PR strategy only a "social media" ban is mentioned.
    10:48 AM - May 10, 2018

    Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa confirmed that Assange was still being
    denied Internet access while talks between the UK and Ecuador to decide his fate
    are still ongoing. “He still has no access to the Internet and communications. There
    is a dialogue, there is a will and an interest to move forward in the solution of that
    matter,” Maria Fernanda said, according to El Tiempo.'

    Read more: Ecuadorian Embassy Adds New Rules For Julian Assange — No Visitors, Phone Calls Or Internet


    https://www.activistpost.com/2018/05...-internet.html
    Last edited by Cidersomerset; 16th May 2018 at 18:03.

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    Default Re: Vault 7

    I’ll pop this here, as good a place as any.

    How Julian Assange Saved Edward Snowden’s Life (27 Oct, 2018, duration: 13:42)


    There have been no further Vault 7 releases.

    To see what’s been going on this year with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, along with the latest, see the following threads -

    Current Wikileaks News & Releases Thread started; 4 Jan, 2018.
    Norway police investigating disappearance of WikiLeaks consultant Thread started; 6 Sept, 2018.
    Julian Assange to regain internet access at embassy base Thread started; 15 Oct, 2018.
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    Default Re: Vault 7

    Stolen NSA hacking tools were used by other hacker groups 14 months before Shadow Brokers leak

    Dan Goodin Ars Technica
    Tue, 07 May 2019 06:48 UTC


    The National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

    One of the most significant events in computer security happened in April 2017, when a still-unidentified group calling itself the Shadow Brokers published a trove of the National Security Agency's most coveted hacking tools. The leak and the subsequent repurposing of the exploits in the WannaCry and NotPetya worms that shut down computers worldwide made the theft arguably one of the NSA's biggest operational mistakes ever.

    On Monday, security firm Symantec reported that two of those advanced hacking tools were used against a host of targets starting in March 2016, fourteen months prior to the Shadow Brokers leak. An advanced persistent threat hacking group that Symantec has been tracking since 2010 somehow got access to a variant of the NSA-developed "DoublePulsar" backdoor and one of the Windows exploits the NSA used to remotely install it on targeted computers.

    Killing NOBUS

    The revelation that the powerful NSA tools were being repurposed much earlier than previously thought is sure to touch off a new round of criticism about the agency's inability to secure its arsenal.
    "This definitely should bring additional criticism of the ability to protect their tools," Jake Williams, a former NSA hacker who is now a cofounder of Rendition Infosec, told Ars.

    "If they didn't lose the tools from a direct compromise, then the exploits were intercepted in transit or they were independently discovered. All of this completely kills the NOBUS argument."

    "NOBUS" is shorthand for nobody but us, a mantra NSA officials use to justify their practice of privately stockpiling certain exploits rather than reporting the underlying vulnerabilities so they can be fixed.

    Symantec researchers said they didn't know how the hacking group-variously known as Buckeye, APT3, Gothic Panda, UPS Team, and TG-0110-obtained the tools. The researchers said the limited number of tools used suggested the hackers' access wasn't as broad as the access enjoyed by the Shadow Brokers. The researchers speculated that the hackers may have reverse-engineered technical "artifacts" they captured from attacks the NSA carried out on its own targets. Other less likely possibilities, Symantec said, were Buckeye stealing the tools from an unsecured or poorly secured NSA server, or a rogue NSA group member or associate leaking the tools to Buckeye.

    The attack used to install Buckeye's DoublePulsar variant exploited a Windows vulnerability indexed as CVE-2017-0143. It was one of several Windows flaws exploited in Shadow Broker-leaked NSA tools with names like "Eternal Romance" and "Eternal Synergy." Microsoft patched the vulnerability in March 2017 after being tipped off by NSA officials that the exploits were likely to be published soon.

    Symantec's report means that by the time the NSA reported the vulnerabilities to Microsoft, they had already been exploited in the wild for months.
    "The fact that another group (besides NSA) were able to successfully exploit the Eternal series of vulnerabilities... is very impressive," Williams said.

    "It speaks to their technical abilities and resourcing. Even if they stole the vulnerabilities while they were being used on the network, that's not enough to recreate reliable exploitation without tons of extra research."
    Tale of two exploits
    Security protections built into modern versions of Windows required two separate vulnerabilities to be exploited to successfully install DoublePulsar. Both the NSA and Buckeye started by using CVE-2017-0143 to corrupt Windows memory. From there, attackers needed to exploit a separate vulnerability that would divulge the memory layout of the targeted computer. Buckeye relied on a different information-disclosure vulnerability than the one the NSA's Eternal attacks used. The vulnerability used by Buckeye, CVE-2019-0703, received a patch in March, six months after Symantec privately reported it to Microsoft.

    Symantec said the earliest known instance of Buckeye using the NSA variants came on March 31, 2016 in an attack on a target in Hong Kong. It came in a custom-designed trojan dubbed "Bemstour" that installed DoublePulsar, which runs only in memory. From there, DoublePulsar installed a secondary payload that gave the attackers persistent access to the computer, even if it was rebooted and DoublePulsar was no longer running. An hour after the Hong Kong attack, Buckeye used Bemstour against an educational institution in Belgium.

    Six months later-sometime in September, 2016-Buckeye unleashed a significantly updated variant of Bemstour on an educational institution in Hong Kong. One improvement: unlike the original Bemstour, which ran only on 32-bit hardware, the updated version ran on 64-bit systems as well. Another advance in the updated Bemstour was its ability to execute arbitrary shell commands on the infected computer. This allowed the malware to deliver custom payloads on 64-bit infected computers. The attackers typically used the capability to create new user accounts.

    Bemstour was used again in June 2017 against a target in Luxembourg. From June to September of that year Bemstour infected targets in the Philippines and Vietnam. Development of the trojan continued into this year, with the most recent sample having a compilation date of March 23, 11 days after Microsoft patched the CVE-2019-0703 zero-day.

    Symantec researchers were surprised to see Bemstour being actively used for so long. Previously, the researchers believed that APT3 had disbanded following the November 2017 indictment of three Chinese nationals on hacking charges. While the indictment didn't identify the group the defendants allegedly worked for, some of the tools prosecutors identified implicated APT3.

    Monday's report said Bemstour's use following the apparent disappearance of Buckeye remained a mystery.
    "It may suggest that Buckeye retooled following its exposure in 2017, abandoning all tools publicly associated with the group," company researchers wrote.

    "However, aside from the continued use of the tools, Symantec has found no other evidence suggesting Buckeye has retooled. Another possibility is that Buckeye passed on some of its tools to an associated group."
    Dan Goodin Dan is the Security Editor at Ars Technica, which he joined in 2012 after working for The Register, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, and other publications.
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    Default Re: Vault 7

    Who needs ‘Russian hackers’? Report reveals CIA incompetence to blame for Vault 7 breach

    By Nebojsa Malic,


    a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Twitter @NebojsaMalic

    RT

    17 Jun, 2020 23:04
    Get short URL


    Screenshot of the first page of the CIA WikiLeaks Task Force's final report

    An internal CIA report about the Vault 7 fiasco paints a damning picture of the main US spy agency. WikiLeaks released the CIA’s hacking tools, likely leaked by an insider, while CIA chiefs were too busy cooking up Russiagate.

    Vault 7 was the name given to cyber attack tools developed by the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), and published by WikiLeaks in March 2017. It was the largest data breach in Langley’s history, with long-lasting consequences. For example, Chinese cybersecurity companies recently used Vault 7 evidence to show that the US has been hacking China for over a decade.

    According to a just-released internal CIA report,
    “CCI had prioritized building cyber weapons at the expense of securing their own systems. Day-to-day security practices had become woefully lax.”

    “Most of our sensitive cyber weapons were not compartmented, users shared systems administrator-level passwords, there were no effective removable media controls, and historical data was available to users indefinitely,” the report goes on to say.
    The heavily-redacted document actually dates back to October 2017 and was only made public Tuesday by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), in an effort to pressure the new Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe into imposing new security measures. While the CIA ineptitude is the obvious takeaway, no one seems to have noticed the real bombshell: the timing of the breach and its implications.

    The report says the CIA “did not realize the loss had occurred until a year later, when WikiLeaks publicly announced it in March 2017.” Now, what all was happening between March 2016 and a year later? You guessed it: Russiagate!

    Even as his own cyber arsenal was getting swiped from under his very nose, CIA chief John Brennan was obsessing about “Russian hackers” of the Democratic National Committee, or Hillary Clinton’s emails, or something – and pushing the bogus ‘Steele Dossier’ alleging Donald Trump’s collusion with Russia, which eventually made it into the infamous ‘Intelligence Community Assessment’ that accused Moscow of meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

    It gets worse. According to the report,
    “Had the data been stolen for the benefit of a state adversary and not published, we might still be unaware of the loss—as would be true for the vast majority of data on Agency mission systems.”
    So if the mythic bogeymen 'Russian hackers' had actually wanted to harm the US, they could have just used the CIA’s own, unprotected cyberweapons to stage false flags and wreak havoc across the world? None of which happened, obviously. Yet Brennan and his confederates have been telling everyone for years that the Kremlins wanted to “hack our democracy” by publishing some Democrat emails and posting memes on social media!


    Former CIA director John Brennan testifies before the House Intelligence Committee on “Russian active measures during the 2016 election campaign,” May 23, 2017. © REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

    Note that Mike Pompeo, who took over at Langley before he moved to Foggy Bottom, bought into Brennan’s fable hook, line and sinker, denouncing WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service” and a “cut-out” for Russia in April 2017.

    In an irony of ironies, the Trump administration – run by a man who denounced the Iraq war and was falsely accused of working with WikiLeaks and Russia to get elected – is now seeking extradition of Julian Assange from the UK on trumped-up hacking charges related to the 2010 WikiLeaks revelations of US atrocities in Iraq.

    As for how Vault 7 got to WikiLeaks, the jury is still out on that. Joshua Schulte, the employee charged with leaking the files, is being prosecuted again after a hung jury at his first trial in March. His lawyers have argued the CIA security was so lax, anyone else on the team, or even outsiders, could have done it.

    The next time the media report some incendiary claim based on US intelligence “assessments,” try to keep all this in mind.

    Related:

  24. The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to Gwin Ru For This Post:

    Ba-ba-Ra (18th June 2020), Bill Ryan (18th June 2020), Franny (18th June 2020), Harmony (18th June 2020), Hym (18th June 2020), justntime2learn (18th June 2020)

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