Updated on 2022-10-09: On CIA informants agent who were compromised in the field
Last week we looked at the Reuters ($) report shedding new light on a network of poorly built CIA-run websites that were secretly communications platforms for its informants in Iran. The story is incredible, and builds off work by Yahoo News back in 2019, which first uncovered the websites that had been “shattered” by Iran’s intelligence, leading to the arrests of many CIA spies, many executed. @zachsdorfman, one of the authors of the original 2019 report, followed up with his own analysis this week following Reuters’ report about how the spies were abandoned by the CIA. Read more:
- On Agent Compromise in the Field
- ‘Shattered’: Inside the secret battle to save America’s undercover spies in the digital age
Spurred by the recent @Reuters report, I wrote about the catastrophic compromise of CIA's covert communications system in China and Iran roughly a decade ago.https://t.co/asCpZkiLaQ
— Zach Dorfman (@zachsdorfman) October 4, 2022
Overview: How CIA’s messaging system failures compromised Iranian informants
Incredible reporting here that uncovered a network of hundreds of mass-produced fake websites, set up by the CIA, but with rudimentary security flaws, which the agency used to communicate with low-level spies operating in Iran. Yahoo News broke the news back in 2018 that a flawed CIA messaging system used by CIA agents had been compromised, leading to the arrests of dozens of informants, but Reuters found the sites that were actually used. “The CIA really failed with this,” said Citizen Lab’s Bill Marczak, one of the two researchers who examined the sites. @joel_schectman has a good tweet thread on the story, but the full piece is worth your time.
We interviewed six Iranians who had worked with the CIA as spies and informants and got caught. A Reuters investigation found CIA negligence likely led to their capture. https://t.co/r7FdkkxSF4
— Joel Schectman (@joel_schectman) September 29, 2022
Using just this one website (plus the Wayback Machine, passive DNS data, and Internet scan data) we were able to map out a total of 885 websites in 29+ languages, potentially geared towards assets in 36+ countries.
— Bill Marczak (@billmarczak) September 29, 2022
This story about America's "throwaway spies" comes as there has been a lot of legit concern about whether Trump's mishandling of classified documents has put US assets at risk around the world. Between @joel_schectman's piece and the Trump breach, the answer is pretty resounding. https://t.co/Kqvi7Mmqgh
— Stephanie Kirchgaessner (@skirchy) September 29, 2022
Read more:
- How the CIA failed Iranian informants in its secret war with Tehran
- The CIA’s communications suffered a catastrophic compromise. It started in Iran.
- Covert CIA websites could have been found by an ‘amateur’, research finds
- Statement on the fatal flaws found in a defunct CIA covert communications system
