A citizen of Tajikistan Saidkul Ashurov, Who was chief technologist at the gold-mining venture in Uzbekistan, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of espionage. It is reported by the Tajik service of Radio “Liberty”.
As the newspaper writes, a resident of Penjikent Sughd Tajikistan recently arrived in Uzbekistan from South Africa. The British company Oxus Gold, which owns 50 percent stake in the joint British-Uzbek venture “Amantaytau Goldfields”, invited him to the post of chief technology officer. Law enforcement agencies of Uzbekistan was detained Ashurova March 5 on charges of collecting information, which is a state secret.
“Ashurov was detained by Uzbek authorities on trumped-up charges of espionage. There are no legal grounds to arrest him,” – said in an interview with radio “Freedom” company lawyer Robert Amsterdam. Uzbek rights activist Sukhrob Ismoilov, Who is also an advisor to the company Oxus Gold, said that the Uzbek authorities have assessed the stored information as a state secret, despite the fact that she was working Ashurova and the public. “Information on the disc represents the mystery and can be obtained freely available on the Internet. It was also found in the court. Some of the information was posted on the website of the joint venture. There was only one file with information about the transportation of gold in 2009, which has lost its relevance “, – he said.
Meanwhile, the Uzbek authorities have not given permission to meet with the prisoner to his wife and three children. “His no show is not allowed to talk, not allowed to meet with relatives. We have asked the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, but to no avail,” – says his brother Ashurov.
The Tajik authorities have appealed to Uzbekistan for permission to attend Tajik diplomats at the hearing on Ashurov, but their requests went unanswered. Relatives and lawyers believe was a victim of Ashurov dispute arose between the company Oxus Gold and the Uzbek authorities, and tense relations between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Recall that in recent years in both countries have recorded numerous cases of accusations of espionage in favor of a neighboring state.
The Finance Ministry today said its office premises are subjected to regular screening for the presence of bugging devices, but no such material has been found so far.
“… All these premises (in Finance Ministry) have been subjected to regular screening. During these exercises, no devices have been detected,” the Minister of State for Finance, Mr S.S. Palanimanickam, said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
He said that security checks are periodically conducted in the Ministry of Finance and the Finance Minister’s Office.
One such routine security check was conducted on September 4, 2010, by the Investigation Directorate of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), which engaged the services of an expert with domain knowledge of the subject, he added.
During the check, adhesive-like substances were noticed at various locations.
“This was brought to the notice of the Prime Minister by the Union Finance Minister in September, 2010,” he said.
Subsequently, the Prime Minister directed the Intelligence Bureau to conduct a secret inquiry into the matter.
“Adhesive patches were found stuck at a few places. The adhesive patches were subjected to chemical/forensic analysis, which revealed that the substance contained contents comparable with contents of chewing gum,” the Minister added.
Physical examination of the recovered substance did not reveal any sign or mark suggestive of any device having been attached thereto.
A massive Pastebin dump of domain names and IP addresses appears to be linked to a Sino-cyber espionage ring.
The data – posted on August 15th by an unknown individual – lists approximately 850 entries which are allegedly exploited to facilitate command and control operations.
“My motivation is purely selfless in nature and I only wish the security community to improve upon what has already been done in this realm. Most of the security community is a fraud and continues to subsist on half-assed analyses and bogus data. All information was compiled from open sources and leaked information; no customer-based data was used for the analysis,” ‘RSA Employee #15666’ wrote in a recent Pastebin post.
“My sincerest apologies go out to those with ongoing monitoring operations on any of the IP addresses involved. These attacks have targeted US and Canadian companies almost exclusively for at least five years; the tools, tactics, and procedures have changed very little during that timeframe and continue to be extremely effective.”
According to #15666, the cyber espionage ring is motivated primarily by financial considerations.
“If your company is one outlined in the list below chances are you’re doing business in the Peoples’ Republic of China or plan to shortly.
“Negotiations are a common target for economically motivated hackers and hence email and other relevant information pertaining to contract negotiation data will be taken. If you currently conduct business with the PRC chances are that your organization has knowingly or unknowingly been compromised.”
As Patrick Gray of Risky.Biz notes, the mysterious data leak is lent “serious credibility” by a previously hacked and extracted analysis from HBGary – which matches a number of the IP addresses and domain names in the new Pastebin dump.
“HBGary codenamed the operation ‘Soysauce.’ The analysis, which was leaked by an attack on HBGary Federal by Anonymous in February this year, identifies each IP address as a callback address for custom malware used in espionage operations, presumably operating out of China,” Gray explained.
“The IP addresses serve a configuration file that re-directs infected hosts to an interactive command and control IP based in Hong Kong. The vast majority of the leaked IP addresses are physically located in the US.”
Although the true identity of “RSA Employee #15666” remains unknown, there is little reason to believe he or she actually works for the RSA. The enigmatic individuals claims: “I have no allegiances, I make no money, I am not legion [Anonymous].”
The Finance Ministry on Friday said that no bugging device was found within its premises, including the office of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee [ Images ], and the suspicious adhesive discovered was chewing gum-like material.
Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam [ Images ] informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply that security audits are periodically conducted in the ministry and Mukherjee’s office.
One such routine security check was conducted on September 4, 2010, by the Investigation Directorate of the CBDT, which engaged the services of an expert with the domain knowledge of the subject, he said.
During this check, adhesive-like substances were noticed at various locations, Palanimanickam added.
“This was brought to the notice of the Prime Minister by the Union Finance Minister in September 2010,” he said.
The Prime Minister directed the Intelligence Bureau to conduct a secret inquiry into the matter.
“Adhesive patches were found stuck at a few places. The adhesive patches were subjected to chemicalforensic analysis, which revealed that the substance contained contents comparable with contents of chewing gum,” the minister added.
Physical examination of the recovered substance did not reveal any sign or mark suggestive of any device having been attached thereto.
“Thereafter, all these premises have been subjected to regular screening. During these exercises, no devices have been detected,” Palanimanickam added.
In June this year, the government faced a controversy of alleged snooping of the offices of Mukherjee and his aides in the North Block.
