Why is it so easy to get inside our heads and manipulate Americans?

This year at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee) special guest speakers included none less than President Trump at an event viewed by many as a barometer for the future of the American right.  It isn’t unusual for CPAC to have some minor controversies but this time many were shocked as Trump supporters enthusiastically waved miniature Russian […]

Moscow spy scandal snowballs: What we know

The murky investigation of Russian intelligence officers reportedly facing treason charges has taken a fresh turn, with the Interfax news agency quoting unnamed sources as saying that two suspects are accused of collaborating with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The news, unverified and uncorroborated, is the latest in a growing number of remarkable leaks […]

Russian security agents accused of treason reportedly charged with passing secrets to the CIA

The case of Sergei Mikhailov who in December 2016 was arrested  for treason takes an interesting turn as Russian authorities accuse him of working directly with the CIA. -Vasilis Chronopoulos  A senior Russian intelligence officer who was arrested for treason in December has been charged with passing secrets on to the CIA, sources told Russian news agency Interfax […]

Controversy erupts over recent Russian plot allegations.

President-elect Donald Trump is caught in a news cycle frenzy due to unsubstantiated allegations put forward in a recently published ‘dossier’. New claims have emerged that Russia has a dossier of alleged compromising material. The Russians conduct espionage and attempt to cultivate people all over the globe, all the time. This tactic shouldn’t be a shock – […]

Former CIA operations officer weighs in on expulsion of Russian diplomats

The report card has been in for a while, and the news is not good. U.S. counterintelligence, our ability to protect U.S. national security secrets from our enemies and rivals, is in shambles. It doesn’t take a former CIA station chief like me to see the stark wreckage of failure surrounding the intel community like the aftermath of […]

Declassified report says Putin ‘ordered’ effort to undermine faith in U.S. election and help Trump

Russia carried out a comprehensive cybercampaign to upend the U.S. presidential election, an operation that was ordered by Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and “aspired to help” elect Donald Trump by discrediting his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a report released Friday. The report depicts Russian interference as unprecedented in scale, saying […]

Behind Russia’s Cyber strategy

MOSCOW—Russia’s military laid out what is now seen as a blueprint for cyberwarfare with a 2013 article in a professional journal by Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s General Staff. Cyberspace, wrote Gen. Gerasimov, “opens wide asymmetrical possibilities for reducing the fighting potential of the enemy.” At the time, Russia’s military was absorbing the lessons […]

How Russia recruited elite hackers for its cyberwarfare

MOSCOW — Aleksandr B. Vyarya thought his job was to defend people from cyberattacks until, he says, his government approached him with a request to do the opposite. Mr. Vyarya, 33, a bearded, bespectacled computer programmer who thwarted hackers, said he was suddenly being asked to join a sweeping overhaul of the Russian military last […]

The luxurious, 45-acre compound in Maryland being shut down for alleged Russian espionage

On Thursday afternoon, the Obama administration announced its long-awaited retaliation for what has been characterized as Russian interference in November’s presidential election. Among the wide-ranging measures, the White House announced that the State Department would be closing two Russian-owned compounds — one in Maryland and one in New York — that it says were used by Russian personnel […]

Are the CIA and Donald Trump slipping into a Russian designed civil war?

A recent CIA briefing given to the Senate indicating that the Russian intelligence services sought to manipulate US elections to favor President Elect Donald Trump has ignited a firestorm across the political spectrum, however, it also signals something far more perilous: a brewing civil war between the incoming president and what will be his primary […]