Mediaboss Marketing

Dehradun: Giving an all new twist to the controversy surrounding the construction of 88-kilometre-long Kandi Road, a proposed stretch cutting through the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) to reduce the distance between Garhwal and Kumaon regions by around 70 kilometres, Harak Singh Rawat, forest and environment minister of Uttarakhand, on Sunday said that the road has a strategic value and is of national importance. The minister said that the proposed road will be crucial for the safety of the country and ensure swift movement of Army troops during any emergency. Rawat has also written a letter to national security advisor Ajit Doval in this regard. Speaking with TOI, Rawat said, Uttarakhand has the headquarters of the Indian Armys Garhwal Rifles in Lansdowne and the headquarters of Kumaon Regiment in Ranikhet. Our state holds strategic importance and therefore, swift movement of Army troops is needed here. In case of an emergency, our forces might need a shorter and quicker route to Pithoragarh or Champawat. Here, the proposed Kandi Road can be of immense significance. Therefore, I have written to national security advisor Ajit Doval. Also, I intend to meet defence minister Rajnath Singh and discuss the issue with him very soon. In 1998, the Supreme Court had rejected the proposal of Kandi Road and had agreed upon the construction of an alternate road through Uttar Pradesh. While hearing the writ petition Navin M. Raheja Vs. Union of India and Others filed in 1998, the apex court had stated that it is the duty of the state to preserve and protect the Corbett National Park as it is a national asset. If constructed, the Kandi Road will cut through the 24-km-long buffer zone between Ramnagar and Khara Gate areas, a 21-km-long core breeding area of CTR, and a 32-km-long buffer zone between Kalagarh and Pakhro in CTR. Notably, Corbett has the highest tiger density in the world. On an average, the reserve has 19.7 big cats per 100 square kilometres. According to WII scientists, the proposed Kandi Road may lead to more incidents of animals getting hurt in accidents. Earlier on December 18, Rawat had announced a bus service through Pakhro-Morghatti-Kalagarh-Ramnagar route (Kandi Road stretch). We are not yet opening up the stretch for public use as there are several legalities to it but it is my understanding that the road is of immense strategic importance and therefore, I want it to be constructed on priority for the safety of our nation, added Rawat. Kandi Road is seen as the dream project of the incumbent state government as it would cut down the travel time for people of Kumaon and Garhwal regions. It was announced by the chief minister after assuming office in 2017. If the road is constructed, people will not have to pass by Najibabad, Nagina and Afzalgarh pockets of Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh to travel between Garhwal and Kumaon regions. Back in 2017, WII scientists had stated that Kandi Road should ideally see the daylight soon as both Uttarkhand and Uttar Pradesh have BJP-led state governments. Also, the saffron party has a comfortable majority in the Centre as well. And an alternate route road through Amangarh, Badapur, and Sauwala of Uttar Pradesh would do the needful rather than passing through Kandi Road by fragmenting habitat of big cats.

Read the original:
Now, Ukhand forest minister calls road through Corbett of strategic value, writes to NSA Ajit Doval ci - Times of India

Trump talking about trying to split up the cyber command from the national security agency, in the midst of a crisis to be talking about that type of disruption makes us vulnerable again, House Armed Services Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Saturday night during an interview with CNN.

On Friday, Smith sent letters to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, warning them against severing the leadership of NSA and Cyber Command. The two agencies have shared leadership under a so-called dual-hat arrangement since the Pentagon stood up Cyber Command in 2009.

Nakasone has led the militarys top digital warfighting unit and the federal governments largest intelligence agency for roughly two and a half years. He has re-imagined how both organizations can deploy their own hackers and analysts against foreign adversaries via a doctrine of persistent engagement putting U.S. forces in constant contact against adversaries in cyberspace, including tracking them and taking offensive action.

The four-star is beloved by both Democrats and Republicans, especially after defending the 2018 and 2020 election from foreign interference. Some lawmakers even joke they wish they could put Nakasone in charge of more parts of the federal government.

Trump, meanwhile, has churned through the leadership of several federal agencies since losing the presidential election last month, including the Pentagon and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The president fired the agencys widely-respected chief, Chris Krebs, last month via Twitter.

Breaking up Cyber Command and NSA is now prohibited under a previous defense policy bill. The measure says the two cannot be split unless the Defense secretary and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff jointly certify that such a move wont hinder the effectiveness of Cyber Command, which is co-located with NSA at Fort Meade, Md.

A Democratic congressional staffer said there is concern on Capitol Hill that Miller and other DoD leaders might simply state that the assessment is complete in order to ram the split through without going through the required steps.

A defense official cautioned that even if the leadership change should go through, President-elect Joe Biden and his defense team could simply reverse the decision and rejoin the offensive digital unit and the intelligence gathering organization.

Originally posted here:
Democrats cry alarm over proposal to split up NSA, Cyber Command amid hacking crisis - POLITICO

NSA warns hackers are forging cloud authentication information | 2020-12-22 | Security Magazine This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

Excerpt from:
NSA warns hackers are forging cloud authentication information - Security Magazine

The most surprising thing about the failure of U.S. intelligence to discover for nearly nine months the SolarWinds penetration of U.S. government agencies, reportedly including the State, Energy, and Homeland Security Departments as well as private contractors, is that anyone is surprised. After all, the National Security Agency, responsible for protecting the communications of the U.S. government, had such a massive hole punched in its capabilities by a breach in 2013 that Michael McConnell, the former director of first the NSA and then the Office of National Intelligence, assessed This [breach] will have an impact on our ability to do our mission for the next 20 to 30 years.

The proximate cause of the damage was Edward Snowdens theft of NSA files in June 2013. He was never apprehended because he fled first to Hong Kong, where he met with journalists, and then Russia, where he received sanctuary from Putin. How could such a loss of intelligence not do immense damage to the NSAs counterintelligence for many years?

According to the unanimous report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Snowden removed from the NSA digital copies of 1.5 million files, including 900,000 Department of Defense documents concerning, among other things, the newly created joint Cyber Command. Other stolen files contained documents from GCHQthe British signal intelligence service to which Snowden had access. One NSA file, a 31,000-page database, included requests to the NSA made by the 16 other agencies in the Intelligence Community for coverage of foreign targets.

NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett, who headed the NSAs damage assessment, warned that this database reveals the gaps in our knowledge of Russia, thus provides our adversaries with a roadmap of what we know, what we dont know, and gives themimplicitlya way to protect their information from the U.S. intelligence communitys view.

Snowdens theft dealt a savage blow to U.S. intelligence. Whenever sensitive compartmentalized information (SCI) is removed without authorization from the NSAs secure facilities, as it was by Snowden, it is, by definition, compromised, regardless of what is done with it. Whether Snowden gave these files to journalists, Russians, or Chinese intelligence, or whether he erased them or threw them in the Pacific Ocean, all the sources in them had to be considered compromisedand shut down. So did the methods they revealed.

The Pentagon did a more extensive damage assessment than the NSA, assigning hundreds of intelligence officers, in round-the-clock shifts, to go through each of the 1.5 million files to identify all the fatally compromised sources and methods they contained, and shut them down. This purge reduced the capabilities of the NSA, the Cyber Command, the British GCHQ, and other allied intelligence services to see inside Russia and China.

The damage was deepened by Snowdens defection to Russia. In a televised press conference on September 2, 2013, Vladimir Putin gloated, I am going to tell you something I have never said before, revealing that, while in Hong Kong, Snowden had been in contact with Russian diplomats. While Snowden denies giving any stolen secrets to Russia, U.S. intelligence further determined, according to the bipartisan House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, that he was in contact with the Russian intelligence services after he arrived in Moscow and continued to be so for three years. Both Mike Rogers, the committees chair, and Adam Schiff, its ranking minority member, confirmed this finding to me. Fiona Hill, an intelligence analyst in both the Obama and Trump administrations, told the The New Yorker in 2017 that The Russians, partly because they have Edward Snowden in Moscow, possess a good idea of what the U.S. is capable of knowing. They got all of his information. You can be damn well sure that [Snowdens] information is theirs.

After the NSA, CIA, and the Cyber Command shut down the sources and methods Snowden had compromised, McConnell pointed out that entire generations of information had been lost. The resulting blind spots in our surveillance of Russia gave Moscows intelligence services full latitude to carry out mischief. Russian intelligence services have no shortage of operatives and tools to carry out long-term operations in cyberspace and elsewhere.

In the 2020 SolarWinds penetration, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attributes to Russian intelligence, the gaps allowed Russian spies to masquerade as authorized system administrators and other IT workers. The spies could use their forged credentials to copy any material of interest, plant hidden programs to alter the future operations of thousands of workstations in networks inside and outside the government, cover their tracks, and plant hidden backdoors for future access. Though it may take years to find and unravel all the malicious code implanted in these systems, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has already determined that this threat poses a grave risk to the Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations.

This immense compromise of government networks is the inevitable price for allowing a large part of our counterintelligence capability to be compromised in 2013. The perverse irony here is that while Vladimir Putin rewarded Snowden for his contributions with permanent residency, Donald Trump says that he is looking into pardoning Snowden for his intrusion into NSA files and betrayal of American secrets.

Edward Jay Epsteins most recent book was How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft.

Photo by Rosdiana Ciaravolo/Getty Images

Original post:
Edward Snowden Pardon and the SolarWinds Hack - City Journal

The pandemic affected everyone this year, but our mission didnt slow down. As our Director, GEN Paul Nakasone said, we are one team, and each of us contributes our unique expertise to a mission that is all the more critical in times of crisis.

Throughout 2020, our workforce contributed our expertise in many ways:

NSA worked to secure our elections

The security of the2020 Presidential electionwas NSAs top priority in 2020. We were part of the Whole-of-Government effort to identify and counter foreign interference and malign influence threats to the 2020 U.S. elections. NSA generated vital insights and shared them with partner agencies like U.S. Cyber Command, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Our efforts strived to assure all audiences, and most importantly, the American public, that NSA, USCYBERCOM, and other U.S. government partners together protected the U.S. elections from foreign interference and influence campaigns.

NSA shared cybersecurity guidance and advisories

MarylandGovernor Hoganrecognized our cybersecurity expertise to keepCOVID-19 research protectedas part of the U.S. Government-wide Operation Warp Speed (OWS). In addition to our support to OWS, as the pandemic shifted the workplace to home, NSA helped teleworkerswork from home safely,secure their home office, and evenlimit their mobile device exposurethanks to guidance developed by our Cybersecurity mission.

NSA continued our steady provision ofcybersecurity advicefor the Department of Defense, National Security Systems and the Defense Industrial Base. These specificadvisories and guidancealso helped system administrators and other cyber specialists across the cybersecurity field by providing information that was timely, relevant, and actionable throughout the year.

NSA drove innovative solutions

While the world faced new challenges this year, we didnt stop creating solutions. We contributed to the evolution of5G, were involved in how to keep theInternet of Thingssecure, planned for the future of national security when applyingquantumcomputing, we developed aQuBIT Collaboratory, and stood up theCenter for Cybersecurity Standards.

NSA invested in our nations future

We look forward to starting the New Year and the future looks bright, thanks to our investments in the future. TheOnRamp II programprovides the scholarships for students who will be developing the newest solutions to keep our nation safe. NSA worked in partnership with the DoD Office of Small Business Programs and created theCybersecurity Education Diversity Initiativeto assist minority serving institutions. This allows Historically Black Colleges and Universities with no existing cybersecurity program to obtain access to and educational resources from designated National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Institutions. We were pleased to announce that theU.S. Naval Academyreceived its designation as an NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations to develop new cyber warriors.

NSA personnel recognized for excellence

While many NSA personnel serve in silence, several of our staff and former personnel were publicly recognized this year for their dedication to our nations security. Former NSA Executive DirectorHarry Cokerwas recognized by the Intelligence Community for his commitment to improving diversity, equality, and inclusion.MSgt Frances Dupris,Dr. Ahmad Ridley,LaNaia JonesandJanelle Romanowere recognized for showing the importance of STEM education and career development. OurTech Transfer Teamwas recognized by the DoD for creating an efficient process for releasing NSA-developed capabilities to the open-source software community.

For more details on our efforts to protect our nation and secure our future, check out our Twitter,@NSAGov, throughout the month.

Read more at NSA

(Visited 60 times, 6 visits today)

Read the original post:
NSA Year in Review: Election Security, Cybersecurity, and More - HSToday