Barr trolling HRC by playing the bag-pipes?

Remember Trump was HRC's "pied piper" candidate!

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/796222841612042240

DoD changes name of security clearance agency, appoints new leadership

By Nicole Ogrysko @nogryskoWFED

June 24, 2019 10:00 am

The Defense Department’s security clearance agency officially has a new name — and new acting leadership.

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency — formerly the Defense Security Service — will be led by acting Director Charlie Phalen, currently director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, the NBIB confirmed to Federal News Network.

The DCSA will subsume NBIB and will serve as the governmentwide security clearance provider. Phalen’s appointment begins July 1 and he will lead both NBIB and the DCSA until the two agencies merge by Oct. 1.

“Mr. Phalen has the full support and confidence of the acting Secretary of Defense, the

acting director of the Office of Personnel Management and myself,” Joseph Kernan, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, wrote Monday in a memo to Defense Security Service and NBIB employees. “His current position, background and experience in both government and industry make him well qualified to serve as the acting director of DCSA. He will provide the steady leadership, continuity, and depth of knowledge necessary to successfully transfer the background investigation mission to DoD and to integrate the workforces into a cohesive team.”

Patrick Shanahan, in one of his last acts as acting Defense secretary, made the name change official in a June 20 memo.

Kernan said the new name reflects both the DSS and NBIB’s missions.

“We are at a key moment in time and have a unique opportunity ahead of us, as we bring together the missions and workforces of NBIB and DSS,” he wrote. “Foreign threats to our personnel, technology, information and facilities are pervasive and growing. They demand that we elevate our focus on security, modernize our processes and capabilities and better integrate our efforts to allow trusted people and technology in, while keeping adversaries out. This combined team is well positioned to

bring greater focus and alignment to U.S. government-wide efforts to strengthen our trusted

workforce, mitigate supply chain threats, protect sensitive information, and bolster

counterintelligence capabilities.”

Monday’s announcement comes as the Trump administration officially recognized DoD as having primary responsibility for security clearances across much of government.

A long-awaited executive order, which President Donald Trump signed back in April, made this move official and set two major timelines. It gave both DoD and OPM until June 24 to finalize the details of the security clearance transfer and sign an agreement that codifies how NBIB and OPM authorities, resources and personnel will move to the Pentagon’s newly rebranded security clearance agency.

The transfer itself won’t be final until Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Kernan, as the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, will oversee the DCSA and the transfer of governmentwide security clearance portfolio from OPM to DoD. In addition, the undersecretary will oversee the development of updated security vetting procedures and strengthen the DCSA’s abilities to protect technology within the defense industrial base, according to Shanahan’s June 20 memo.

Kernan’s organization will, of course, also be responsible for the backlog of pending security clearances, which sits at roughly 410,000 today.

The DCSA hopes to further whittle the security clearance inventory to 300,000 by the end of this fiscal year, a senior DoD official told reporters Monday at a briefing at the Pentagon.

Moving nearly all of the pieces needed to investigate and adjudicate a security clearance under one roof will shorten the process, the DoD official said.

“Once we execute the transfer, all of the elements of the investigative system —from submission to investigation to adjudication to record keeping — will all be under a single agency for 95% of the entire number of cases in the government,” the official said.

That goal, at least based on NBIB’s progress to date, may seem conservative. NBIB has slashed the security clearance inventory by some 300,000 cases within the past year. The agency has achieved that progress through a variety of business process improvements, new technology and more personnel, Phalen told Federal News Network last week.

DCSA is also fielding and modernizing its own IT system, which will add capabilities that are not available now.

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“This also provides us the preamble to start fresh, to shape an integrated, responsive organization, and to foster a culture that reflects the best of both NBIB and DSS,” Kernan said.

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/nbib-transfer-to-dod/2019/06/dod-changes-name-of-security-clearance-agency-appoints-new-leadership/

Belgium arrests man suspected of plotting terrorism attack against U.S. embassy

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian police have arrested and charged a man with planning a terrorism attack against the U.S. embassy in Brussels, prosecutors said on Monday.

The man, identified only by his initials M.G., was arrested on Saturday. He denies accusations, the prosecutors said in a statement.

Prosecutors said they had “converging indications” that led them to believe the man was plotting an attack.

To protect the ongoing investigation, no more details will be released at this stage, the statement said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-belgium-security-usa/belgium-arrests-man-suspected-of-plotting-terrorism-attack-against-us-embassy-idUSKCN1TP1T7

IRANIAN HACKERS LAUNCH A NEW US-TARGETED CAMPAIGN AS TENSIONS MOUNT

WHEN TWO COUNTRIES begin to threaten war in 2019, it's a safe bet that they've already been hacking each other's networks. Right on schedule, three different cybersecurity firms now say they've watched Iran's hackers try to gain access to a wide array of US organizations over the past few weeks, just as military tensions between the two countries rise to a breaking point—though it's not yet clear whether those hacker intrusions are aimed at intelligence gathering, laying the groundwork for a more disruptive cyberattack, or both.

Analysts at two security firms, Crowdstrike and Dragos, tell WIRED that they've seen a new campaign of targeted phishing emails sent to a variety of US targets last week from a hacker group known by the names APT33, Magnallium, or Refined Kitten and widely believed to be working in the service of the Iranian government. Dragos named the Department of Energy and US national labs as some of the half-dozen targeted organizations. A third security firm, FireEye, independently confirmed that it's seen a broad Iranian phishing campaign targeting both government agencies and private sector companies in the US and Europe, without naming APT33 specifically. None of the companies had any knowledge of successful intrusions.

"Essentially, there have been many people targeted since these tensions increased," says John Hultquist, director of threat intelligence at FireEye. "We're not sure if it's intelligence collection, gathering information on the conflict, or if it's the most dire concern we’ve always had, which is preparation for an attack."

Some signs suggest the new targeting campaign is indeed a cyberespionage operation, an expected step from Iran given the rising saber-rattling between its government and that of the US—amid Iran's claim to have downed a US drone that breached its airspace and the Trump administration issuing warnings that it may retaliate. But the researchers also note that APT33 has links to data-destroying malware, and warn that the intrusion attempts could be the first step in that sort of more aggressive cyberwar operation.

FireEye has previously warned that while APT33 has in prior operations largely focused on traditional spying, it has also at times appeared to have destructive tools in its arsenal. In 2017, FireEye reported that APT33 infected some victims with "dropper" malware that had in other attacks been used to plant a piece of data-destroying code known as ShapeShift. Crowdstrike, too, says it has seen APT33's fingerprints appear in some intrusions where another piece of destructive malware known as Shamoon had been used, a wiper tool tied to a collection of sometimes-devastating Iranian sabotage campaigns across the Middle East.

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https://www.wired.com/story/iran-hackers-us-phishing-tensions/

Chinese Drone Manufacturers Pose Huawei-Like Threats, Expert Says

JUNE 19, 2019

Officials allege the Chinese government is using native drone companies to collect “an unprecedented level” of intelligence on the U.S.

The government needs to spur a “Manhattan Project-style investment” in America’s unmanned aircraft industry to combat the economic and national security threats posed by Chinese drone manufacturers, a cybersecurity expert told lawmakers.

“These foreign drones are exploiting us and putting … our American businesses and government organizations at risk,” National Defense University Professor Harry Wingo said Tuesday. “These threats should not and cannot be ignored.”

Roughly 80 percent of the drones in the U.S. are made by Chinese companies, and the Chinese government is using that foothold to collect “an unprecedented level” of intelligence on America’s physical and economic infrastructure, Wingo told the Senate Commerce Security subcommittee. That intimate understanding of America’s inner workings could potentially give the Chinese an economic and military edge, he said, and creates “significant cybersecurity risks” for U.S. businesses and government agencies.

Those threats will only be exacerbated as the Chinese government ramps up its artificial intelligence capabilities, which would help officials rapidly analyze the information they collect, he added.

In an exchange with Ranking Member Ed Markey, D-Mass., Wingo said the threats from Chinese drones resemble those posed by Huawei, the Chinese telecom titan the White House is trying to effectively blacklist from U.S. markets.

During the hearing, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., proposed the government follow a similar playbook with Chinese drone manufacturers like DJI. Though Wingo agreed an outright ban on Chinese drones is appropriate in cases tied to public safety and critical infrastructure, he said empowering U.S. manufacturers to “compete vigorously” with their Chinese counterparts would be a more effective solution.

“The main thing we have to do is look at drones as infrastructure, and consider, really, a Manhattan Project-style investment” in the domestic industry, Wingo said. He referenced a presidential memo signed last week that declared the country’s small unmanned aircraft industry “essential to the national defense.”

Beyond money, he added, promoting the use of open source software for drones could give U.S. manufacturers a leg up over their Chinese competitors, which rely on proprietary systems.

During the hearing, lawmakers also called for the Federal Aviation Administration to move forward on measures that would enable law enforcement agencies to better identify and intercept rogue drones.

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https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/06/chinese-drone-manufacturers-pose-huawei-threats-expert-says/157828/