Russia's Secret Intelligence Agency Hacked: 'Largest Data Breach In Its History'

The hackers managed to steal 7.5 terabytes of data from a major contractor, exposing secret FSB projects to de-anonymize Tor browsing, scrape social media, and help the state split its internet off from the rest of the world.

FSB is Russia's primary security agency with parallels with the FBI and MI5, but its remit stretches beyond domestic intelligence to include electronic surveillance overseas and significant intelligence-gathering oversight. It is the primary successor agency to the infamous KGB, reporting directly to Russia's president.

A week ago, on July 13, a hacking group under the name 0v1ru$ that had reportedly breached SyTech, a major FSB contractor working on a range of live and exploratory internet projects, left a smiling Yoba Face on SyTech's homepage alongside pictures purporting to showcase the breach. 0v1ru$ had passed the data itself to the larger hacking group Digital Revolution

BBC Russia broke the news that 0v1ru$ had breached SyTech's servers and shared details of contentious cyber projects, projects that included social media scraping (including Facebook and LinkedIn), targeted collection and the "de-anonymization of users of the Tor browser."

The projects themselves appear to be a mix of social media scraping (Nautilus), targeted collection against internet users seeking to anonymize their activities (Nautilus-S), data collection targeting Russian enterprises (Mentor), and projects that seem to relate to Russia's ongoing initiative to build an option to separate the internal internet from the world wide web (Hope and Tax-3). The BBC claims that SyTech's projects were mostly contracted with Military Unit 71330, part of FSB's 16th Directorate which handles signals intelligence, the same group accused of emailing spyware to Ukranian intelligence officers in 2015.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/07/20/russian-intelligence-has-been-hacked-with-social-media-and-tor-projects-exposed/#3b60f9bc6b11

Shelby Pierson will be the first Election Threats Executive and serve as Coats's principal adviser on the issue as well as coordinating activities and initiatives across the intelligence community.

https://www.nbc-2.com/story/40813820/us-spy-chief-names-first-election-security-coordinator

Ms. Pierson began her career as an imagery intelligence analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency in 1999. She is a permanent detailee to NGA.

Ms. Pierson initiated her intelligence career working regional analysis with an emphasis on Middle East and leadership issues. She has worked accounts that influenced national policymakers as well as provided direct support to the warfighter. Her analytical accomplishments in this context culminated with her appointment as Chief of NIMA’s Leadership and Internal Security Team for Operational Iraqi Freedom.

Ms. Pierson has enjoyed years of diverse assignments which have developed her expertise in GEOINT sources, methods and policy. In 2003, she worked as a liaison to CIA’s Directorate of Operations where she managed a special program on its behalf. By 2005, she was promoted to serve as the Senior Intelligence Officer for Denial & Deception. Ms. Pierson also worked on analytical and remote sensing policies that affect foreign knowledge of US imagery intelligence efforts and in turn, adversarial Denial and Deception. By 2011, she moved as the Deputy Chief of the Cyber & Underground Issues Division where she led the GEOINT mission contribution to cyber including support to the network defense community and national policy customer base. In addition, she also shepherded the modernization of GEOINT engagement at the DNI’s Underground Facility Analytic Center. In December 2012, she was promoted to her current assignment in the Office of Asia-Americas where she runs day-to-day intelligence production and operations for one of the largest organizations in NGA’s Analysis Directorate. Her office is responsible for customers ranging from the National Security Staff, Intelligence Community, Combatant and Functional Commands and Homeland Security stakeholders.

Prior to joining the Intelligence Community, Ms. Pierson gained professional experience in the private sector, Congress and academia. She has a BA in International Relations from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon with an emphasis in national security policy.

https://www.workingmother.com/shelby-l-pierson