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John Scott-Railton Profile picture
@jsrailton
Feb 15, 2023 • 11 tweets • 10 min read • Read on X
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WHOA: Team of Israeli ex-spies boast of manipulating 33 elections w/ #hacking & #bots.

Tricked into demoing #telegram hacking & bot army to undercover investigators.

By @skirchy @manisha_bot @davidtpegg @carolecadwalla & @burke_jason
theguardian.com/world/2023/feb… ImageImageImageImage
2/ “After you’ve created credibility, what do you do? Then you can manipulate"

Good to see @Meta take action on these accounts.

Honestly though we are at the absolute tip of the iceberg. ImageImage
3/ Here he is demoing access to the #Gmail of a purported key political insider in #Kenya just days before the election.

This tech & tactics is kerosene on the flames of democracy. Image
4/ “I know in some countries they believe #Telegram is safe. I will show you how safe it is”

Yikes.

Unclear how he is gaining access to these #Gmail & Telegram accounts, but the talk of #SS7 is a good hint.

And yet another reminder: SMS is not a safe second factor. ImageImage
5/ Great to see mercenary election manipulators exposed. Solid journalism.

Trust me, this is a window into a *much bigger industry* active in elections around the world.

So rare to see it caught.
6/ The fact that so much political activity happens on a handful of platforms makes the tooling for political manipulation really interoperable.

Also radically lowers barriers to entry.

Making mercenary election manipulation scaleable & easy to export. Image
7/ Of course, we don't know whether these guys have successfully changed the outcome of any election.

The guy here is also pretty clearly boasting & trying to sell.

But the mere fact of mercenary election manipulators running around is damaging, even when they don't win.
8/ Even if mercenary election manipulators don't successfully throw an election (e.g. successfully shift mass sentiment), bots, hacking & turbocharged dirty tricks can distort political culture.

Opposing parties have to adjust.

And the net result is harm to democracy.
9/ UPDATE: @haaretzcom reports the mercenary political manipulators targeted 🇺🇸US politicians.

Like @GavinNewsom in #California

Topic: #diablocanyon nuclear plant

Were taxpayer funds routed to #TeamJorge for that op?

STORY haaretz.com/israel-news/se… ImageImageImageImage
10/ Powerful coda to this remarkable story
11/ Really remarkable undercover work went into this story.

Huge credit to @omerbenj @GurMegiddo & @FredMetzo for pulling off such a feat.

These are paranoid people confessing to illegal things, it cannot have been easy.

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More from @jsrailton

John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Dec 4
WHOA: Predator spyware discovered in 🇵🇰#Pakistan.

+ a leak shows zero-click infections via... ads.

Yikes.

Here are some more damming revelations as Intellexa, the shady, sanctioned spyware supplier gets exposed by @AmnestyTech & partners.. /1Image
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2/ First, a mercenary spyware myth has just been busted.

Because the leak shows an Intellexa employee directly accessing a customer deployment.

Prior to the #PredatorFiles leak, spyware companies basically always claimed they couldn't access customer deployments & didn't know what was going on there.

They used this to avoid responsibility & claim ignorance when faced with abuses.Image
3/ And it gets crazier. The leak shows Intellexa casually accessing a core backbone of Predator deployment of a government customer.

Seemingly without the gov's knowledge.

Suggests that Intellexa can look over their shoulder & watch their sensitive targeting.

Huge counterintelligence nightmare for customers.

And a giant liability red-flag for intellexa.Image
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Read 11 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Nov 13
NEW: 🇨🇳Chinese hackers ran massive campaign by tricking Claude's agentic AI.

Vibe hacking ran 80-90% of the operation without humans.

Massive scale (1000s of reqs/sec).

Agents ran complex multi-step tasks, shepherded by a human.

Long predicted. Welcome to the new world.

Fascinating report by @AnthropicAI 1/Image
2/ The old cybersecurity pitch: unpatched systems are the threat.

The next generation concern might be unpatched cognition.

The attacker jailbroke the cognitive layer of @anthropic's Claude code, successfully convincing the system of false intent (that it was a security exercise)Image
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3/ One of the key points in @AnthropicAI's report is just how limited the human time required was to run such a large automated campaign.

Obviously powerful stuff, highlighting the impact of orchestration.

And concerning for the #cybersecurity world for all sorts of reasons, ranging from attack scale, adaptability & cost reductions...

But I keep thinking of the next step in this..

READ: assets.anthropic.com/m/ec212e6566a0…Image
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Read 6 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Nov 11
Putin has 3 identical offices his residences to hide where he is when he goes on TV.

But a cascade of tiny details gives the whole thing away.

Light switches, door handles, wood patterns & wall seams.

Truly epic OSINT.

h/t @alburovImage
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2. First, Putin had one office in his Novo-Ogarevo residence.

Then, paranoia kicked in. After he invaded Crimea it intensified.

Time for new digs, and elaborate deceptions to make him feel safe & project the image to Russians that he's an engaged Moscow-based leader. Image
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3/ For something that cost so much, the number of substantial differences & subtle tells is overwhelming.

Undoing the entirety of the enterprise of deception.

You have to assume that Intelligence services have known these tells for a long time.
svoboda.org/a/systema-kabi…Image
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Read 7 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Oct 23
NEW: Ex exec at premier private cyber weapons contractor to US accused of selling eight trade secrets to buyer in Russia.

I think this = exploits.

Very bad: at minimum would give adversaries a blueprint for detecting the tip of the spear of US/Allied cyber ops..

Wild story 1/Image
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2/ A watch collection studded with fake rolexes...

...is allegedly part of Peter "doogie" Williams haul from selling the hacking labs' secrets.

documentcloud.org/documents/2619…Image
3/ While doogie's watch collection is a joke, the questions couldn't be more serious:

Were cyberweapons paid for by American taxpayers also turned against us?

Were service members, officials, or civilians at physical risk? When was this breach first suspected? Who knew what? When?Image
Read 9 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Oct 22
WARNING: seeing a lot of phishing against @Signal users.

Did you get a message like this?

Don't engage! It's an attempt to steal your account.

Your account is safe & chats are private, but you should use Signal's option to Report Spam & Block. 1/Image
2/ You can make the attackers life harder by clicking Report.

Background: Like any popular secure messaging app, Signal users sometimes get targeted by spam & phishing attempts.

Often, attackers guess large numbers of usernames / phone numbers & send out message requests...Image
3/ Take a minute to remind yourself how message requests & blocking work on @Signal.

FAQ: support.signal.org/hc/en-us/artic…Image
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Read 4 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Oct 21
A "damaging" leak of tools from a five eyes exploit developer?

Concerning. We need to know what's under this rug.

Big picture: "trusted, vetted" private sector players offensive cyber are not immune to losing control of tooling... with national security consequences 1/
2/ If true, a tooling leak at boutique firm Trenchant wouldn't be the first time that exploits from commercial offensive vendors wind up... in the wrong place.

Many questions.

In the meantime. Remember when Russian APT29..was caught with exploits first used by NSO & Intellexa? Image
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3/ There will always be a push for states to turn towards the private sector to meet offensive needs.

It's appealing. For some, it's very lucrative.

But in practice it brings unavoidable counterintelligence & national security downside risk that shouldn't be downplayed.
Read 11 tweets

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