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Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
Start your day with intelligence. Get The OODA Daily Pulse.
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
At first glance one is tempted to say, “Well, at least he’s being honest.” After a few moments of reflection it hits me, “Yeah, but it’s the honesty of a fool.” I may be wrong, but I’d bet good money that Mr. Stein not only knows nothing about the military or our national security apparatus;…
. . . is no good if you chose to ignore it, or, “Why it helps to know what the **** you’re doing.” In the 48 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit, the White House received detailed warnings about the storm’s likely impact, including eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of…
Rep. Rogers (R-MI) almost makes me wish I was a Wolverine (Aerospace Daily – subscription req’d): If the U.S. wants to score more successes in the war on terrorism there has to be a mix of technology and human intelligence, says a member of the House Intelligence Committee. “I think we made a horrible…
Clearly not: Russia‘s state security service, the FSB, has accused British diplomats of spying in Moscow. It backed claims made in a Russian TV report which showed footage of what it said was British agents retrieving data from a fake rock planted on a street. […] The programme said four officials from the UK embassy…
You may not like the wording of the phrase “global war on terror” or even the idea that we can fight and win a war against a methodology. Nevertheless, we find ourselves engaged in a conflict with an adversary that has worldwide ambitions and cannot be pinned down to any geographic location a’la our adversaries…
Star Jones illustrates oh so clearly why celebrities are about as qualified to comment on national security issues as I am qualified to comment on the relative merits of pads vs. tampons. Yesterday, the co-hose of ABC’s THE VIEW told viewers during a discussion of bin Laden’s latest audio tape: “You know what? At some…
ABC sheds some light: Midhat Mursi, 52, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was identified by Pakistani authorities as one of four known major al Qaeda leaders present at an apparent terror summit in the village of Damadola early last Friday morning. The United States had posted a $5 million reward for Mursi’s capture. He…
As far as FBI CI goes, confidence remains high: By the government’s own account, FBI analyst Leandro Aragoncillo was spying in plain sight. He rummaged through FBI computers for intelligence reports unrelated to his work and then e-mailed the classified documents to opposition leaders in the Philippines. He had traveled more than a…
Cyber lawyer Jennifer Granick weighs in: The United States government either currently has, or soon will have, new technology that makes mass surveillance possible. The next question for citizens and other policy makers is whether and when to use this capability. [ . . .] The president [is] wrong to suggest that the FISA warrant…
The New York Times would have us believe that slow, limited progress = failure: […] the results of the [NSA intercept] program look very different to some officials charged with tracking terrorism in the United States. More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who…
The FBI’s CIO says we should pay no attention to the man behind the curtain: The FBI must overhaul its personnel practices, shape up its enterprise architecture and embrace commercial software, or it risks another case management system fiasco, analysts inside and outside the government say. […] In a recent letter [to Congress] GAO cited…
Inside CIA headquarters, a high-tech monitoring operation scores an intelligence coup, obtaining a close-up photo of an Iranian nuclear facility. The source: an Iranian blog discovered in the vast labyrinth of the Internet […] Elliot Jardines is this United States’ first director for open source intelligence, an unusual job in a business that usually keeps…
A National Journal story about how life in DC will end up killing more of us: It felt like the end of a traveling show. The players looked tired. A bittersweet air hung about them. For Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the chair and vice chair of the 9/11 commission, Monday, Dec. 5, was the…
I am not one to attract attention. Part of it is cultural; part of it is learned through two-decades of serving in silence in the US Intelligence Community. Coming out as a named contributor in a recent article in the Weekly Standard is unusual for me in the sense that I’d just as soon my…
ThreatsWatch is one of those sites that I’ve always meant to hit. They get a lot of play from other sites I visit, but for whatever reason I never got around to getting there. After reading about the digital scuffle between TW blogger Bill Roggio and the Washington Post, I had to surf on over.…
The National Police of Ukraine (NPU) successfully took down a network of “call centers” on Tuesday that targeted Ukrainian and European Union citizens who had been victims of crypto scams. The fraudulent call center allegedly offered to help those affected by crypto scams as well as recommending investment packages in crypto, gold, oil, and other…
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that one popular niche of the cryptocurrency ecosystem has become a prime target for cybercriminals. In a new press release, the agency reports that users of decentralized finance (DeFi) suffered over a billion dollars in losses during the first quarter of this year due to malicious online…
A House oversight subcommittee asked regulators and industry leaders on Tuesday to explain what they are doing to stop cryptocurrency fraud and other scams perpetrated on consumers. Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, head of the Economic and Consumer Policy subcommittee, asked leaders of the Treasury Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Federal Trade…
On August 8, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the country will endorse Tornado Cash, a decentralized application on the Ethereum blockchain, that allows the anonymous transfer of bitcoin. Due to the reasoning behind it as well as how it was executed, this has angered the crypto community and may be a precursor…
Centralized finance platforms have taken a huge credibility hit due to poor risk controls, but decentralized finance protocols haven’t escaped unscathed either. So, is DeFi or CeFi likely to emerge stronger from this current period of turmoil, or is the future likely to see some sort of hybrid of the two? In November 2021, Zhu Su,…
Regulators are tasked with balancing between protecting consumers and creating environments where entrepreneurs and the private sector can thrive. When markets face distortions, perhaps due to an externality or information asymmetry, regulation can play an important role. But regulation can also stifle entrepreneurship and business formation, leaving society and its people worse off. The United States…
The crypto market is ripe with lucrative investment prospects, but fraud and other security flaws continue to plague the sector. Therefore, learning ways to avoid crypto fraud is now imperative. How can you protect yourself from falling victim to cryptocurrency fraud? How do you keep your personal crypto information uncompromised? Investment and trading are two distinct…
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning investors that cybercriminals are increasingly exploiting security vulnerabilities in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms to steal cryptocurrency. “The FBI has observed cyber criminals exploiting vulnerabilities in the smart contracts governing DeFi platforms to steal investors’ cryptocurrency,” the federal law enforcement agency said. “The FBI encourages investors who suspect…
The last few years have seen blockchain platforms becoming the centerpiece of many tech conversations across the globe. This is because the technology not only lies at the heart of almost all cryptocurrencies in existence today but also supports a range of independent applications. In this regard, it should be noted that the use of…
Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, will complete a plan to lower its carbon emissions by more than 99% in the next month, the foundation that controls the platform has confirmed. The project, called “the merge”, will result in Ethereum switching the underlying technology it uses for validating crypto transactions to a new process that requires…
An active cryptocurrency mining malware campaign has already infected more than 111,000 users in Germany, Israel, Poland, the U.S. and other countries, according to a report published by American-Israeli cybersecurity provider Check Point Software Technologies. Bad actors are setting traps for victims on websites of the likes of Softpedia that feature free software. They trick…
The crypto world has experienced an increase in Ponzi schemes since 2016 when the market gained mainstream prominence. Many shady investment programs are designed to take advantage of the hype behind cryptocurrency booms to beguile impressionable investors. Ponzi schemes have become rampant in the sector primarily due to the decentralized nature of blockchain technology which enables…
Singapore may soon roll out regulations to restrict cryptocurrency retail trading, according to one of the country’s top financial officials. At an event on Monday, Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), described crypto retail investors as “irrationally oblivious” to the risks, advocating for tightening controls. “These may include customer suitability tests and…
Hacks have plagued the cryptocurrency space over the years. Hacks that happen on a protocol are the most devastating because they cause millions of losses for traders. With these hacks, there is always a question of how users will be compensated or how the protocol will recover lost funds. For instance, the Acala stablecoin was hacked…
With the exponential growth of cryptocurrencies, NFTs and other blockchain implementations, there has never been a better time for a cybercriminal to convert a vulnerability into easy and big money. We see two different types of attacks involving cryptocurrencies. One of these is centered around the end user (the victim). The attack technique relies on…
If there’s any lesson crypto companies should have learned from this year so far — a mere eight months that have vaporized some $2 trillion in value — it’s that the world’s continued existence doesn’t depend on them being around. It wasn’t always this way, though. Last year, the U.S. Treasury issued a report on…
Despite the cryptosphere going through a harsh winter the sector maintains its attractiveness to one sector – illicit users. According to Chainalysis’ Mid-year Crypto Crime Update report, criminal activity appears to be more resilient in the face of price declines: Illicit volumes are down just 15% year-on-year, compared to 36% for legitimate volumes. This is…
While policymakers have been busy formulating sweeping changes and regulators have been busy debating jurisdiction, some participants in the cryptocurrency industry have been busy regulating the space themselves. And considering that all too often the word “regulation” follows the word “government,” we shouldn’t be too quick to overlook the fact that the market too is…
While cryptocurrencies have gone from red hot to full on meltdown in recent months, with both retail and institutional investors losing substantial sums amidst the sell-off, threat actors don’t show any signs of shying away from finding new and innovative ways to pursue this lucrative and relatively new financial category with increasingly complex and stealthy…
For the past five years, cryptocurrency entrepreneurs have been in fierce disagreement with U.S. regulators over an existential question: whether certain digital assets are securities, or investment contracts that need to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The stakes are high—if a cryptocurrency is deemed a security in a U.S. court, it basically…
hieves stole over $100 million worth of non-fungible tokens in the year to July, blockchain research firm Elliptic said on Wednesday, as the fast-emerging digital asset became a new front in crypto’s hacking problem. NFTs are blockchain-based assets that represent digital files such as images, video or text. The market surged in 2021 as crypto-rich…
That is from the synopsis of an interesting new paper by Lin William Cong, Campbell Harvey, Daniel Rabetti and Zong-Yu Wu. It is a fairly comprehensive look at the criminal ecosystem built on top of the cryptocurrency boom, ranging from hacking, money laundering, scams, ransomware, sextortion and illegal commerce. Obviously, the data on these crimes…
The company behind Tether, the world’s most popular and widely used stablecoin, wants to have its bitcoin-shaped cake and eat it too. More accurately, it has previously claimed it works with U.S. financial regulators, but at the same time mentioned it doesn’t facilitate U.S. customers, so it doesn’t have to comply with orders. Which is why…
After numerous warnings that SudoRare could be a scam did the rounds on Crypto Twitter, the anonymous team behind the decentralized NFT exchange has pulled the rug. The theft has defrauded users of about $820,000 worth of ETH and other crypto tokens. According to on-chain data, the incident occurred early Tuesday, only about six hours after…
What do car manufacturers have to do with crypto lending platforms? Consumers and investors deserve protection—that’s true of motor vehicles and investment vehicles alike. In September 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Nearly six decades later, seat belts and other basic safety features remain standard. That’s true despite…
The tragedy of some has been the blessing of others in the crypto space this year. The increase in cybercrime related to the cryptocurrency industry has fueled the work of firms dedicated to evaluating and ensuring the security of companies that trade in crypto. Attacks sponsored by North Korea’s hacker army and other criminals against Western…
Google is the world’s biggest backer of cryptocurrency and blockchain companies. The tech giant’s parent company Alphabet invested $1.5 billion into just four crypto startups since September 2021, according to a report from Blockdata. The companies backed were digital asset custody platform Fireblocks, Web3 game company Dapper Labs, Bitcoin infrastructure tool Voltage and venture capital firm Digital…
Coinbase (COIN) failed to properly secure customers’ accounts, leaving them vulnerable to theft and unauthorized transfers, a putative class action lawsuit filed against the crypto exchange last week alleges. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, also accuses the company of causing financial harm to users by locking…
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence