Introduction
With the technological advances that seem to be advancing daily, our national security has been impacted by the growing popularity of social engineering attacks and counterintelligence. The website WikiLeaks majorly impacted the US with the release of the Afghan War Diary in July of 2010. If that was not bad enough, there was another major release of documents entitled the Iraq War Logs that was posted on the WikiLeaks website in October of 2010. So social engineering attacks and counterintelligence of this type has cause major changes to take place in regards to how classified information is handled.
Describe what social engineering and counterintelligence are and their potential implications to our national security in regard to the leaked Afghan War Diary and the Iraq War Logs
The term social engineering refers to intrusion that is non-technical but a result of human interaction. The attacker uses trickery to gain the confidence of an authorized user tricking them into giving up information that the attacker can use to gain access to systems and compromise normal security procedures. Most of the time authorized system users are unaware of the fact they have access to important information, and the attackers prey on these type of users who they know can be careless about protecting it. The greatest threat to security systems today are a result of social engineering. (Rouse, 2006)
Merriam-Webster (Webster, 2014) defines Counterintelligence as: “Organized activity of an intelligence service designed to block an enemy's sources of information, to deceive the enemy, to prevent sabotage, and to gather political and military information”. Agencies can use many different types of techniques to help keep information safe....
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...ed on how to respond to information security breaches. Regardless of an organization size, there is always the risk of information breaches.
Works Cited
Counterintelligence (2014), In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved February 1, 2014, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterintelligence Rouse, M. (2006), Social Engineering, Retrieved on 02/1/2014 from http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/social-engineering Goldman, Russell & Martinez, Luis (2010), “WikiLeaks: At Least 109,000 Killed During Iraq
War”, Retrieved on 02/1/2014 from http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-109000-deaths-iraq-war/story?id=11949670#.TyicXlXrOQo
Dunn, M. (2013), WikiLeaks: who is(n’t) safe?, Retrieved on 02/1/2014 from,
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McCraw, David, and Stephen Gikow. “The End to a Unspoken Bargain? National Security and Leaks in a Post-Pentagon Papers World.” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 48.2 (2013): 473-509. Academic OneFile. Web. 5 Dec. 2013.
In this case, a large health services organization (HSO) in Florida, that has a world-renowned AIDS treatment center had information breach of 4,000 HIV+ patient records, and the list was sent to newspapers, magazines, and the internet. Consequently, this issue was featured in every media vehicle in the world and as CEO, you are requested by the board of trustees to come up a better management information system (MIS) to resolve all information security issues or you will face termination. After hiring an undercover computer security consultant to help determine where the security leak came from, she quickly identifies numerous breaches in computer security and provides a report with the issues identified. The report furnished by the consultant revealed that facility had major problems with the MIS and the staff. In order to determine how to address the issues, the CEO must first answer the following questions: what law is being violated by the employees, why was this law enacted, what are the penalties for such violations, what are the penalties for sharing celebrity information, and should he be updating his resume and looking for another job (Buchbinder, 378).
?Espionage.? 2000-2004. The War to End All Wars. Michael Duffy. Original Material. Primary Documents Online.
After World War II American intelligence had the need to be transformed. The inexperience along with bureaucracy and poor coordination among American intelligence officers obligated the United States intelligence community to change dramatically in order to confront the new challenges that emerged after the end of WWII. From Early America through WWI the intelligence system of the United States of America was involved in operations in which they had to construct intelligence systems virtually from scratch (Andrew 1995). Human intelligence was already developed, but with certain limitations and other intelligence disciplines were underdeveloped and very seldom sophisticated. After WWI America recessed and settled in a period of peace. The United States faced no threat to its security from its neighbors, from powers outside of the Western Hemisphere (Lowenthal 2006). That caused a visible absence of intelligence activities, leaving America out of sight for any international conflicts; the United States of America focused and limited its activities beyond its own borders. In later years the Japanese attack to Pearl Harbor, America rushed to reactivate their military forces, moving from a passive country to full participation into a another international conflict; WWII. As a consequence, the United States engaged in activities that improved its intelligence system increasing its capabilities needed to address seriously the future threats of the Cold War.
With the introduction of the internet being a relatively new phenomenon, the act of cyber espionage is not something that has been properly acknowledged by society. The American Government has done a stand up job of keeping its methods in the shadows and away from the eyes of its people since its documented domestic surveillance began on October 4th, 2001; Twenty three days after the Twin Towers fell President George Bush signed an order to begin a secret domestic eavesdropping operation, an operation which was so sensitive that even many of the country's senior national security officials with the...
Rules and constraints, or what many refer to as a “legalistic wall” misinterpreted by some and misunderstood by others, made it very difficult for the IC to share information before 9/11. Best (2007), maintained that the Intelligence Community failed to share information because there were “walls” between intelligence and law enforcement agencies. These walls kept analysts from talking to each other and from sharing pieces of information that, if they had been viewed in close relationship, might have yielded a coherent picture of the emerging plot.
Whitman, M., & Mattord, H. (2010). Management of information security. (3rd ed., p. 6). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
The CIA is one of the U.S. foreign inteligency agencies, responsible for getting and analyzing information about foreign government, corporations, individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. government. The State Department's Bureau or inteligence and reserch and theDefense Department'sdefense inteligence agency comprise the other two. Its headquarters is inLangley, Virginia, across the Potomac River from D.C. The Agency, created in 1947 by President Harry S. Trueman, is a descendant of the Office of stratigic Services(OSS) of World War 2. The OSS was dissolved in October 1945 but William J. Jonavan, the creator of the OSS, had submitted a proposal to President Roosevelt in 1944. He called for a new organization having direct Presidential supervision, "which will procure intelligence both by overt and covert methods and will at the same time provide intelligence guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the intelligence material collected by all government agencies." Despite strong opposition from the military, the State Department, and the FBI, Truman established the Central Intelligence Group in January 1946. Later under the National Security Act of 1947, the National Security council and the Central Intelligence Agency were established.
The NSA or the National Security Agency, is “the largest intelligence agency in the US, which is responsible for collecting and analyzing communications and signals intelligence, plus cybersecurity” ( MacAskill, Borger, and Greenwald par. 1-2). Since its inception, “the very existence of the National Security Agency was not revealed more than two decades after its establishment in 1952” ( MacAskill, Borger, and Greenwald par. 1). and since “its structure and activities remain largely unknown. Hence its wry nickname: No Such Agency” ( MacAskill, Borger, and Greenwald par.1). “Once President Harry Truman established the NSA, its purpose was to collect data and information across the country and internationally. The task originally gi...
One of the factors at stake is the perception of the United States government to both the national and international community. The U.S. is typically seen as the “land of the free” but these leaks suggest otherwise and create distrust with the government. Also, the information collected is only as secure as the program designed; meaning, where will this data go and who is able to access it. The administration should consider addressing these issues quickly to prevent cyber security concerns, at the very least, from escalating.
In order to fulfill its duty of ensuring the safety of its law-abiding citizens, and apprehending those who would cause them harm, the government does need to access certain information. In fact, many blame suppressed intelligence operations for allowing the terrorist attacks in 2001 to slip through (Cooper). It would be foolish not to tighten security after suc...
The Central Intelligence Agency’s main responsibility is stated in its Vision statement: “We will provide knowledge and take action to ensure the national security of the United States and the preservation of American life and ideals” (www.cia.gov). The CIA’s job is to provide pertinent, timely, and un-biased foreign intelligence. They also act as an unseen force by conducting undercover action as ordered by the President in order to preempt threats or achieve objectives of the United States. The CIA is the only intelligence organization that is not subject to cabinet prerogative, making it reliable in it is unbiased in its reports, because it has no political agenda. There are six main types of intelligence by which the CIA collects information. Human intelligence (HUMINT) is information gathered by field operatives through overt and covert techniques (www.cia.gov). Communications intelligence (COMINT) is acquired from intercepted foreign communications (www.cia.go...
Social Engineering: What It Is and How to Help Protect Yourself. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.microsoft.com/security/resources/socialengineering-whatis.aspx
Cyber security is the most important computer technology needed in today’s society. Some people think that better computer design will be cost effective and provide protection to our bank accounts, social security numbers and driving records, but recent hacks like Equalfax which have put millions of people in jeopardy is the reason that cyber security is the most important.
Social engineering is a non-technical form of intrusion that uses deception to gain your trust and trick you into providing personal information that you usually would not give out freely. (Rouse, 2006). Social engineering is one of the biggest techniques used in identity theft. Computer technology has radically changed the world and how society communicate with each other. When computer technology was in its infancy, business companies were the only member of society that had to be concerned about social engineering attacks. With the arrival of mobile and personal computing for nearly everyone, securing personal data has become an issue for everyone, not just business organizations. If you’re personal information is not protected, the consequences can be catastrophic. Today, there are spammers, hackers, virus developers, and identity thieves that poses a real risk to your privacy and even more importantly, your finances. (Williams & Sawyer, 2013).