An Emory University law student who was arrested months ago at a demonstration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, accused of being a spy and locked in an Egyptian jail for the summer returned home to New York City on Saturday as part of a prisoner swap that also freed 25 Egyptians held in Israel.
Ilan Grapel, 27, arrived at Kennedy Airport looking tired and thin, but wearing a huge smile.
He said that after spending more than four months behind bars in Egypt, he had a new appreciation for the American legal system.
“All of a sudden, the Bill of Rights is not something for the history books,” he told reporters gathered in the terminal.
Hackers reportedly used an off-the-shelf computer attack created in China to compromise the computers of at least 48 companies, including in the chemical and defense industries — an attack described as being similar to the notorious Stuxnet virus, if not as severe.
The goal of the attacks, reported Monday by security software company Symantec, “appears to be to collect intellectual property such as design documents, formulas, and manufacturing processes.”
The purpose: “industrial espionage, collecting intellectual property for competitive advantage.”
Symantec dubbed the attack “Nitro” and said a total of 29 companies in the chemical industry were targeted, in addition to 19 in other sectors, starting in late July. Among the companies were some that develop materials used primarily in military vehicles.
The infected computers spanned the globe, from the United States to Denmark to Saudi Arabia and Japan. Symantec didn’t identify the successfully attacked companies by name.
Emails carrying a rogue file were used to compromise the companies networks, Symantec said. The messages purported to contain a necessary security update, but instead, unsuspecting users were opening a self-extracting executable file containing PoisonIvy, which Symantec described as a “common backdoor Trojan developed by a Chinese speaker.”
From there, the attackers went to work finding out all they could about the computers in the workgroup or domain.
“Nitro wasn’t at the level of sophistication of a Stuxnet,” Jeff Wilhelm, a senior researcher with Symantec’s security response, told Computerworld. “But there are similarities with other advanced threats.” He gave the attack’s narrow focus as one example.
Symantec traced the attacks to a man in his 20s living in the Hebei region of China, though it is unclear how deeply he may have been involved in the cyberattack and whether anyone else was involved.
Geographic location of infected computers in the Symantec report.
(Credit: Symantec)
Hackers targeted about 50 organizations–including chemical and defense companies–in a global wave of cyber espionage attacks this summer, Symantec said in a report released today.
The goal apparently was to steal intellectual property such as design documents, formulas, and manufacturing processes. “The purpose of the attacks appears to be industrial espionage, collecting intellectual property for competitive advantage,” according to the report. (PDF)
Meanwhile, French nuclear power group Areva was reportedly targeted in a cyber attack in September.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Unaware the FBI has her under surveillance, Russian spy Anna Chapman buys leggings and tries on hats at a Macy’s department store. A few months later, cameras watch her in a New York coffee shop where she meets with someone she thinks is her Russian handler. It is really an undercover FBI agent.
Tapes, documents and photos released Monday describe and sometimes show how Chapman, now a celebrity back in Russia, and other members of a ring of sleeper spies passed instructions, information and cash. The ring was shut down in June 2010 after a decade-long counterintelligence probe that led to the biggest spy swap since the Cold War.
The FBI released the material to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The investigation was code-named “Ghost Stories,” the release of documents on Halloween a coincidence.
While the deep-cover agents did not steal any secrets, an FBI counterintelligence official told the AP they were making progress.
BERLIN, Oct. 24 (UPI) — U.S. spies have been spying on their counterparts in East Germany and West Germany, recently released documents indicate.
The CIA was expected to monitor East German spies during the Cold War, but U.S. documents indicated Americans were spying on their allies in West Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst as well, The Local reported Monday.
The German magazine Focus said documents indicated office alliances, personal peccadilloes and health information were noted.
The spying continued into the 1990s, even after the fall of communism, with BND agents with a Nazi past drawing attention, the magazine reported.
Focus said the documents indicated telephone calls with Germany’s domestic intelligence and security authority were tapped, as were conversations with other security services in Paris and London.
BND said they weren’t surprised by the news they were being spied on by the CIA.
A former BND counterintelligence expert told Focus he and colleagues often thought such clandestine operations were undertaken.
“The cat does not let the mouse free,” the former spy said when asked if he thought the CIA were still spying on the BND.
