Who Sent Saudi Documents to WikiLeaks?

Who stole the Saudi documents, and why? 

(SALEM, Ore.) – WikiLeaks’ publishing of “The Saudi Cables” (http://ift.tt/1K09W5i) – more than half a million top-secret documents from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry, has gained significant media attention in recent days.

The released documents, which expose Saudi involvement in regional affairs and also its hostile policies towards Iran and Syria, in addition to its allies, has triggered a wave of concern & uncertainty in different countries.

The most important question for readers is, who stole the Saudi documents and what is the purpose behind it?

The Saudi government and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, formed a committee headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. They have opened an investigation to identify those responsible for releasing classified documents from the Saudi Arabia Foreign Ministry.

Analysts expressed very different views on leaked Saudi documents:

Although a group calling itself the ‘Yemeni Cyber Army’ claimed the hacking, it still doesn’t identify who sent them Saudi documents? We should accept that leaking top-secret documents was done by individuals from the Saudi government and foreign ministry. A person or a group gave advanced access to the documents to the Yemeni Cyber Army.

The second possibility is attributable to those countries which show “hostility” toward Saudi Arabia – especially Iran, Syria and Iraq. WikiLeaks repeatedly released documents against these countries. This possibility is not feasible because Iran and Syria are not afraid to stand publicly against Riyadh.

A third possibility can be competitors of Saudi Arabia, particularly Qatar and Turkey. Qatar and Turkey are always ready for regional competition with Saudi Arabia so they are willing to spend a considerable amount of their political and financial resources to reach their goals.

The fourth possibility is Western and Israeli intelligence services, however the support of Saudi Arabia from each of these countries does not match with this possibility.

Russia and China is the fifth possibility. Betrayal of Saudi Arabia in oil prices coincided with EU’s sanctions against Russia over Ukraine That crisis might make the Russians angry enough to take this action.

The sixth is likely to be combined with the prior possibilities. Power struggle in the house of Saud, and King Salman’s unexpected relieving of Crown Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, and also Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of their positions after four decades of service, could have led to members within the Saudi Arabia’s Royal Family leaking documents, to put pressure on King Salman.

Top-secret documents may also have been leaked by the Royal Court of Saudi Arabia to remove competitors and usurp more power.

Saud al-Faisal’s dismissal and his unexpected death after releasing documents, and death threats for Khalid al-Tuwaijri, Talal bin Abdul Aziz and Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, indicate a bloody struggle for power within the Royal family.

Hence, this possibility with the death of al-Tuwaijri and other competitors of Muhammad bin Salman, will be much stronger than other possibilities.

Mohammed bin Salman killed two birds with one stone by releasing classified documents from the Saudi Arabia Foreign Ministry. On one hand he would cover up his failure in Yemen and on the other hand he would pave the way for getting close to sitting on the Kingdom’s throne.

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How carmakers are banding together to fight hackers

As automobiles become more connected to the Internet, drivers will become more vulnerable to hackers. That’s why major automakers are teaming up to try and make sure their cars can’t be hacked.

Companies like Ford, General Motors and Toyota are working through the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of Global Automakers to create an Information Sharing and Analysis Center, reportsAutomotive News. The data-sharing center should be operational by the end of the year, that publication reports.

Computer hackers targeting vehicles have made several big headlines in the past year. Just last month, it was reported that hackers were able to disrupt a Jeep Cherokee being driven by a Wired journalist. In theory, hackers can manipulate advanced car functions like automated parking to affect vehicles’ movement, a potentially massive safety issue.

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HILLARY WARNED AUDIENCE THAT “HACKERS BREAK INTO PERSONAL EMAIL ACCOUNTS”

Attempting to defend her use of a private email server, Hillary Clinton has sought to minimize the obvious security risk that doing so posed. She describes her system as “effective and secure,” and notes that it was “on property guarded by the Secret Service.”

Her campaign website proclaims:

The security and integrity of her family’s electronic communications was taken seriously from the onset when it was first set up for President Clinton’s team…

[R]obust protections were put in place and additional upgrades and techniques employed over time as they became available, including consulting and employing third party experts.

But Jeryl Bier, writing for the Weekly Standard, points out that following the WikiLeaks affair, then-Secretary of State Clinton was less sanguine about the security of personal email accounts. In remarks delivered at George Washington University in February 2011, she warned that “[h]ackers break into financial institutions, cell phone networks, and personal email accounts.”

Yes, they do. And the “upgrades, techniques, and third party experts” utilized by financial institutions are sometimes insufficient to thwart hackers.

Previously, in November 2010, Clinton had boasted that she “directed that specific actions be taken at the State Department, in addition to new security safeguards at the Department of Defense and elsewhere, to protect State Department information so that this kind of breach cannot and does not ever happen again.”

An obvious action to protect State Department information would have been for Clinton to stop using a private email server. This would have ruled one important source of state secrets as a target for hackers. Yet Clinton kept right on using her own private server.

In May 2011, Clinton again expressed her understanding of threat inherent in communicating electronically and its national security implication. Asked by NBC’s Savannah Guthrie about her use of the BlackBerry, Clinton replied, “I have a lot of security restraints on what I can and can’t do, but I do try to stay in touch as much as possible, and electronically is by far the easiest way to do that.”

Sadly, “security restraints” did not restrain Clinton from transmitting classified material through an unsecured system.

In sum, even after WikiLeaks, personal “convenience” (actually, Hillary’s obsession with preventing her domestic adversaries from ever finding out how she operated) trumped protecting the nation from a security threat of which Clinton was well aware.

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The Ashley Madison hackers break their silence | hacker samurai

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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY IS FIGHTING BACK AGAINST COMPUTER HACKERS | hacker samurai

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The Ashley Madison hackers break their silence

Until now, all that we have heard from the Ashley Madison hackers known as the “Impact Team” were statements embedded in their data leaks.  Statements like: “We have explained the fraud, deceit, and stupidity of ALM and their members. Now everyone get to see their data.”

So what’s the fraud all about? We already knew that the team of hackers was upset about a feature called Full Delete that promised users a scrubbed profile, getting rid of credit card information, emails, addresses and other sensitive information.

But The Impact Team called Avid Life Media’s (ALM) bluff, noting that Full Delete didn’t do anything, despite its $19 price tag and ALM’s $1.77 million profit off the feature.

Therefore, the Impact Team released data for more than 37 million Ashley Madison users, in an effort to shut down the site and company for good.

Outside of their own releases connected to the data dumps, nobody has connected with the Impact Team to hear the rest of their story, until now. Motherboard was given an email address to contact and thus the Impact Team has given its first interview.

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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY IS FIGHTING BACK AGAINST COMPUTER HACKERS

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. –Rutgers University is fighting back against computer hackers after having its networks breached at least 4 times last school year.

Rutgers now has 3 cybersecurity firms working to protect the school’s computer system.

Avoiding the next cyber attack is costing the university up to 3 million dollars a year.

Paying for the firms was part of the university’s reason to raise tuition this year.

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