Armada Intelligence » Security

Can Social Media Start the Next War? $

karen — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:01:08 +0000

Take thousands of young folks, throw in a smart public relations mind with a vendetta against the United States, add in the ability to rile up foreign anti-American sentiment, and you get the makings for a war that nobody will be able remember as to why it started. Here’s the situation: the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (the Boston Bombing suspect) and the killing of his brother by Boston police are gaining viral attention around the world. A rumor started by Tsarnaev’s mother suggests that the boys were framed and that the boys were innocent. Those who follow the news closely have seen video and have seen

AA Flights Grounded by Computer Glitch $

karen — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:21:09 +0000

All American Airlines flights in the U.S. were grounded until at least 5 p.m. eastern today due to a computer problem with the airline’s reservation system. Depending on how long it takes to fix the issue, flights could be grounded even longer. The FAA ordered AA to ground all flights at the request of the airline. The issue will undoubtedly cause huge issues throughout air travel networks nationwide and beyond, and could take several days to fully catch up. Also impacted are commercial air cargo shippers. For some supply chains this

When a Chihuahua Threatens a Pit Bull $

karen — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:00:28 +0000

North Korea threatened the United States again, saying that it would use a “pre-emptive” nuclear strike on the United States to thwart our aggression toward it. That comes about 7 hours before the UN was to announce new economic sanctions against the country. It really comes as no surprise – and you could have found that headline across any number of national media reports. And that’s perhaps where this gets a little more interesting. If the media makes a big deal out of these threats and enough US public opinion swells to force action by the White House, then it becomes material.

The United States and South Korea are currently conducting joint exercises in the region, just about 5 days before North Korea is expected to announce that the 1950′s armistice cease-fire with South Korea will no longer be in effect. Technically, the two countries are still at war.

We aren’t sure at what point in time companies start to shift sourcing

President Warns on Cyber Security $

karen — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 17:21:04 +0000

We’ve been warning you for two years about the growing risk of cyber threats to private and public institutions. The President has now put it front and center on the global security risk list. Vowing to spend billions of dollars to help secure the private and public cyber worlds, the President at least showed us that there are a lot of different views on this subject.

Security experts say that there so many new threats on a weekly basis that a national effort to try and “stop” cyber theft and cyber attacks is an impossible goal. But, we can limit the severity of the attacks and the level of highly vulnerable and highly destructive attacks that are possible. The President wants to focus on the electric grid and major

Department of Energy Suffers Cyber Attack $

karen — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:48:06 +0000

The U.S. Department of Energy, which is responsible for storing and maintaining the nuclear arsenal of the U.S., was hit by a cyber-attack recently. Reportedly, the attack did no damage to DOE systems or infrastructure, and no technical information was accessed. However, the attack focused specifically on gaining

Up to Half a Million Control Systems at Risk of Attack $

karen — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 20:40:25 +0000

Recent research from independent security experts found at least 500,000 SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems are currently hooked up to the internet, putting them at potential risk of a hacking attack. The most famous hacking attack against a SCADA system was Stuxnet, which took out about one-third of Iran’s nuclear enrichment centrifuges in 2010. Recent attacks against SCADA systems include

Isfahan, Iran Evacuated…Why? $

karen — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:55:43 +0000

Isfahan, Iran is the site of a nuclear facility that is reportedly responsible for converting “yellow cake” into material that is useful in nuclear applications (including weapons).

Early in December, the citizens in the area were urged to temporarily evacuate the city because of “dangerously high smog levels”. The evacuation order given by the government was blamed on “terrible traffic jams” that had raised the toxic levels of smog to a dangerous point.

US officials aren’t talking and

New Anti-Islam Video Raising Terror Alerts $

karen — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:42:20 +0000

A video will reportedly debut on YouTube soon with a very similar point of view to “The Innocence of Muslims,” which was released in September and set off violent protests throughout the Muslim world. There are few details on the video itself, but this one reportedly focuses on Muhammad, and was made by an ex-Muslim now living in Spain in conjunction with

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire $

karen — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:12:53 +0000

President Assad’s threat to start using chemical weapons has been bantered about in the media. As of last night, he was reportedly mixing the chemicals that make Sarin gas (which would give them a six week shelf life) in order to deploy them in aircraft that could disperse them across the country. Assad vehemently denies that this is happening and suggests that it is a ploy by Western forces to get them “into the fight” in Syria.

However, there have been too many movements, statements, and actions by the US and even Russia to suggest that there could be some truth in the chemical weapons intelligence.

We typically visit a source from the Middle East that tends to know quite a bit about various military actions in the region. But, we have to caution that they don’t always show to be accurate in their assessments of activity. With that in mind, they

White House Review Clears Huawei of Spying $

karen — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 16:18:04 +0000

A review of Chinese technology company Huawei revealed no evidence that the company was intentionally spying for the Chinese military. Huawei and fellow Chinese telecom company ZTE have come under fire in recent weeks after being accused by Congress of riddling their products with vulnerabilities for the Chinese military to use for espionage and sabotage. The White House ordered an exhaustive review of Huawei products and did not find evidence of any spying. They did find that Huawei products are still a big security risk, but not