🔥 Beijing turns to privatized cyber espionage

Good Morning and happy 4th of July. 

Today marks the 248th anniversary of the United States’ independence, although this historic date has only been celebrated as a federal holiday since 1941.

We hope you’re able to spend some time in front of the barbecue, enjoy the fireworks with friends and family, and reflect on how fortunate we are to enjoy our hard won freedoms.

— 🐈‍⬛ Acoustic Kitty

THE BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

Recent leaks have uncovered how Beijing is leveraging private hacking companies to conduct offensive cyber operations.

A report published in Defense One explores the implications of a trove of 577 documents that was uncovered from the Chinese firm iS00N, which exposed extensive espionage activities across Europe, Asia, and North America for China's Public Security Bureaus and State Security Departments.

This disclosure highlights a significant shift towards privatized cyber espionage within China’s intelligence operations. The strategic use of private sector hackers suggests an intensification and expansion of Beijing's capabilities to target international entities covertly.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY & DIPLOMACY

Counterterrorism

• Hezbollah says a top commander has been killed in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon, at least the third high-ranking official in the group to be killed in almost nine months.

Military & Defense

• Iraq’s Prime Minister seeks to pivot the traditionally security-focused relationship with the United States towards a more comprehensive partnership that includes economic development and regional integration.

• Hamas faces growing public dissent as Gaza war erodes support

• The Government Accountability Office has sent the Air Force back to the drawing board as the branch struggles to award a $12 billion contract for systems integration support of next-generation nuclear missiles.

Cybersecurity

• The personal data of nearly 800,000 people was leaked during a months-long cyberattack at Chicago’s Lurie Children’s Hospital this year that forced the institution to shut down its entire network.

• Alleged Chinese hackers, known as “Velvet Ant,” are exploiting a zero-day flaw within Cisco’s NX-OS software that allows them to execute arbitrary code as a root user, potentially leading to high-level security breaches.

• Brain Cipher, the hacking group behind a major cyber attack on the Indonesian government last month, have issued a surprise apology and offered to release the stolen data.

Counterintelligence & Espionage

• The top official and deputy in the Paris office of China’s Ministry of State Security have been asked to leave the country for orchestrating the forcible repatriation of a political dissident.

• A French citizen arrested in Russia has pleaded guilty to criminal charges involving illegally collecting information on the country’s “military and military-technical activities.”

Transnational Organized Crime

• Hong Kong police have rounded up 301 people in a 17-day crackdown on fraud syndicates accused of using internet and phone scams to cheat local residents out of $47.4M.

• Alleged Sinaloa cartel financial operator, ‘The Whip,’ was extradited to US to face pending drug and conspiracy charges.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Netline Communications Technologies recently unveiled a family of drone detection systems for elusive unmanned aerial systems.

Signatures of an estimated 20 percent of current drones are not available in the database, making their detection difficult. They include stealthier military drones and modified commercial drones.

Netline’s new non-database direction-finding (DF) sensor features an artificial intelligence-based algorithm that detects unknown drones through visually recognizable common elements of airborne threats.

In other news…

Scientists discover way to 'grow' sub-nanometer sized transistors for future low-power, high-performance electronic devices.

DARPA partnered with HyperSpectral, a company that applies AI to spectroscopic data, to use satellites or drones to find rare minerals.

A team of German scientists have achieved the first intercity quantum key distribution experiment with a deterministic single-photon source, revolutionizing how we protect our confidential information from cyber threats.

DEALS & FUNDING

Mobility solutions company Crowley has received a $2.3B contract to extend support for the US Defense Freight Transport Services (DTFS) program.

The seven-year deal is a continuation of the DTFS award in 2017, which covers transportation and logistics services for surface vehicles operated by the US Transportation Command.

These platforms are utilized to move other tactical vehicles and equipment across the continental US, Alaska, and Canada.

In other news…

Chinese commercial satellite maker MinoSpace has secured more than $137M to enable major state and commercial missions like satellite internet and Earth observation.

The Army awarded Lockheed Martin a $227M contract for the Army Tactical Missile System guided missile and launching assembly for foreign military sales to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco and Poland.

The U.S. Space Force has added Blue Origin and Stoke Space Technologies to its roster of launch providers eligible to compete for short-turnaround small-satellite missions under the Orbital Services Program-4 contract.