Wednesday, August 31, 2011

DOJ helped set up disinfo campaign for Bank of America

According to a story in “The Tech Herald,” the Department of Justice recommended three cyberspy firms to the law firm Hunton & Williams to help coordinate an attack on Wikileaks for the Bank of America.

According to the Tech Herald, "Hunton and Williams were recommended to Bank of America’s general counsel by the Department of Justice, according to the email chain viewed by The Tech Herald. The law firm was using the meeting to pitch Bank of America on retaining them for an internal investigation surrounding WikiLeaks.

“They basically want to sue them to put an injunction on releasing any data,” an email between the three data intelligence firms said.

“They want to present to the bank a team capable of doing a comprehensive investigation into the data leak.”

Recent published reports have alleged that the bank used phony documents to proceed with foreclosures and falsified the nature of real estate assets it sold to such mortgage insurance companies as AIG. Numerous state Attorneys General are investigating the matter.

“After a tip from Crowdleaks.org, The Tech Herald has learned that HBGary Federal, as well as two other data intelligence firms, worked to develop a strategic plan of attack against WikiLeaks. The plan included pressing a journalist in order to disrupt his support of the organization, cyber attacks, disinformation, and other potential proactive tactics.”

According to a Wikileaks news release, the proposed actions include:

- Feed the fuel between the feuding groups. Disinformation. Create messages around actions of sabotage or discredit the opposing organizations. Submit fake documents and then call out the error. 


- Create concern over the security of the infrastructure. Create exposure stories. If the process is believed not to be secure they are done. 


- Cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project. Since the servers are now in Sweden and France putting a team together to get access is more straightforward. 


- Media campaign to push the radial and reckless nature of WikiLeaks activities. Sustain pressure. Does nothing for the fanatics, but creates concern and doubt among moderates. 


- Search for leaks. Use social media to profile and identify risky behavior of employees.

The three firms include Plantir Technologies, HBGary Federal and Berico Technologies.

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