Fix Is In: House
Committee on ‘Russian Hacking’ Includes Only DNC-Hired Tech Experts
by Lee Stranahan 9 Mar 2017
A list of
witnesses scheduled to appear at a House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence Open Hearing on “Russian Active Measures” contains a glaring
problem: the only technical experts scheduled to testify are from CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike is a firm hired by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and has
become the primary source of the narrative about “Russian
hacking” of the 2016 election and has acted as a mouthpiece for the
Democrats since last June.
The initial witness list released by House Intelligence
includes a number of intelligence officials, all appointed during the Obama
administration, such as former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper, and former Acting Attorney General Sally
Yates, but the sole technical people on the invitation list are two
representatives of CrowdStrike, President Shawn Henry, and the co-founder Dmitri
Alperovitch.
Breitbart News has interviewed
tech experts who do not agree with the CrowdStrike
assessment or Obama administration’s claims that the DNC/DCCC hacks clearly
committed by Russian state actors, with much criticism aimed at the FBI/DHS
Joint Analysis Report (JAR) “Grizzly Steppe” that was released at the end of
December. As ZDNet
reported after the JAR report was released by the Obama
administration on the same day
that they announced sanctions against Russia:
The JAR included “specific indicators of compromise,
including IP addresses and a PHP malware sample.” But what does this really
prove? Wordfence, a WordPress security company specializing in analyzing PHP
malware, examined these indicators and didn’t find any hard evidence of Russian
involvement. Instead, Wordfence found the attack software was P.AS. 3.1.0, an
out-of-date, web-shell hacking tool. The newest version, 4.1.1b, is more
sophisticated. Its website claims it was written in the Ukraine.
Mark Maunder, Wordfence’s CEO, concluded that since the
attacks were made “several versions behind the most current version of P.A.S
sic which is 4.1.1b. One might reasonably expect Russian intelligence
operatives to develop their own tools or at least use current malicious tools
from outside sources.”
True, as Errata Security CEO Rob Graham pointed out in a
blog post, P.A.S is popular among Russia/Ukraine hackers. But it’s “used by
hundreds if not thousands of hackers, mostly associated with Russia, but also
throughout the rest of the world.” In short, just because the attackers used
P.A.S., that’s not enough evidence to blame it on the Russian government.
Independent cybersecurity experts, such as Jeffrey Carr, have cited numerous errors
that the media and CrowdStrike have made in discussing the hacking in what Carr
refers to as a “runaway
train” of misinformation.
For example, CrowdStrike has named a threat group that
they have given the name “Fancy Bear” for the hacks and then said this threat
group is Russian intelligence. In December 2016, Carr
wrote in a post on Medium:
A common misconception of “threat group” is that [it]
refers to a group of people. It doesn’t. Here’s how ESET describes SEDNIT, one
of the names for the threat group known as APT28, Fancy Bear, etc. This
definition is found on p.12 of part two “En Route with Sednit: Observing the
Comings and Goings”:
As security researchers, what we call “the Sednit group”
is merely a set of software and the related network infrastructure, which we
can hardly correlate with any specific organization.
Unlike CrowdStrike, ESET doesn’t assign APT28/Fancy
Bear/Sednit to a Russian Intelligence Service or anyone else for a very simple
reason. Once malware is deployed, it is no longer under the control of the
hacker who deployed it or the developer who created it. It can be
reverse-engineered, copied, modified, shared and redeployed again and again by
anyone.
Despite these and other criticisms from technical experts
with no political axe to grind, the House Intelligence committee has called no
independent cybersecurity professionals to challenge the Democrats’ claims of
“Russian hacking” that have been repeated ad naseum by the media.
Instead of presenting counter-arguments to allow the
general public to make up their own minds, the House committee has invited Shawn Henry and Dmitri Alperovitch from CrowdStrike,
The danger is especially high since the subject involves
technical details that the public—and, frankly, most politicians—don’t
understand and can be easily fooled about. A presentation with no rebuttal at
all from other technical experts will lead to even more disinformation being
given to the American people.
There are a number of reasons to be skeptical of the
objectivity of CrowdStrike’s assessments.
As Esquire reported in a
long profile piece, the DNC specifically used Alperovitch and Henry as part of
an anti-Trump publicity plan related to the hacking in early June 2016:
The DNC wanted to go public. At the committee’s request,
Alperovitch and Henry briefed a reporter from The Washington Post about
the attack.
Alperovitch told me he was thrilled that the DNC decided
to publicize Russia’s involvement. “Having a client give us the ability to tell
the full story” was a “milestone in the industry,” he says. “Not just
highlighting a rogue nation-state’s actions but explaining what was taken and
how and when. These stories are almost never told.”
The Esquire piece also indicates that as the
election wore on, the Obama administration was also using Alperovitch and
CrowdStrike’s claims to push the Democrat narrative that the Russians were
behind the attack:
On October 7, two days before the second presidential
debate, Alperovitch got a phone call from a senior government official alerting
him that a statement identifying Russia as the sponsor of the DNC attack would
soon be released. (The statement, from the office of the director of national
intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, appeared later that day.)
It is worth noting that CrowdStrike and Alperovitch’s
story has evolved over time to match a Democrat narrative. In an article in Inc.
on June 14, 2016, titled “Why the
DNC Hired This Cybersecurity Firm to Fight Russian Spies,” Alperovitch
claimed that the purpose of the DNC hack was to expose Donald Trump:
On Tuesday, it was revealed that the Russian government
is implicated in a security breach of the Democratic National Committee’s
computer network, through which opposition research on the bombastic
presidential candidate was lifted.
“Every world leader is trying to figure out who Mr. Trump
is, especially if he’s elected president, and they want to know what his
foreign policies would be. Russia is no exception,” says Dmitri Alperovitch,
co-founder and CTO of CrowdStrike. His firm was hired to manage the breach.
“The actors are also interested in any other information the DNC might have in
their opposition research to use it against Trump if he becomes president,”
says Alperovitch, who leads the Intelligence, Technology and CrowdStrike Labs
teams.
There is no justification for a technical expert like
Alperovitch ascribing motives to the hackers or making statements about what
“world leaders” think. It is simply outside his area of expertise, but the
point of the Democrats using Alperovitch and Henry to promote their “Russian
hacking” narrative is to provide a technical veneer to their story to score
political points.
Shawn Henry, the other House witness from CrowdStrike
scheduled to testify on March 20 before House Intelligence, said on his LinkedIn page that
he also works for NBC News, where he says his role is to “advise NBC News on
all aspects of national, homeland, and cyber security, to include on-air
appearances on all NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC News programs.” He added that he is to
“regularly appear on Nightly News, The Today Show, and MSNBC news programming.”
CrowdStrike also has a financial connection to one of
Hillary Clinton and the Democrats’ most high-profile supporters in Silicon
Valley: Google.
In 2015, CrowdStrike raised $100 million in a new round
of financing, according to the New
York Times, which reported that “the investment was
led by Google Capital, one of the technology giant’s venture capital arms, in
its first cybersecurity deal.”
As Breitbart News reported,
the WikiLeaks releases showed that Eric Schmidt, executive of Google
Capital parent company and financier Alphabet, appeared to be working directly
with the Clinton
campaign.
All of this makes the reliance of the House Committee and
the media on CrowdStrike disturbing, but even worse, earlier this year, BuzzFeed
reported that the FBI did not examine the servers of the Democratic
National Committee but, instead, based their assessment on CrowdStrike’s
evaluation:
Six months after the FBI first said it was investigating the hack
of the Democratic National Committee’s computer network, the bureau has still
not requested access to the hacked servers, a DNC spokesman said. No US
government entity has run an independent forensic analysis on the system, one
US intelligence official told BuzzFeed News.
The FBI has instead relied on computer forensics from a
third-party tech security company, CrowdStrike, which first determined in May
of last year that the DNC’s servers had been infiltrated by Russia-linked
hackers, the U.S.
intelligence official told
BuzzFeed News.
“CrowdStrike is pretty good. There’s no reason to believe
that anything that they have concluded is not accurate,” the intelligence
official said, adding they were confident Russia was behind the widespread
hacks.
Despite that claim by an unnamed intelligence official,
there is reason to believe that what CrowdStrike has concluded is not accurate.
At this point, however, the House Committee and the American people will
not see it.
Breitbart News has requested an interview with Dmitri
Alperovitch, but at press time there was no response.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence says
that initial witness invitation lists “may be expanded or modified as
warranted.”
Democratic National
Committee (DNC)
Democratic
National Committee (DNC) is a CrowdStrike Services client.
Note: Shawn Henry is the
president of the CrowdStrike Services,
and was an executive assistant director for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community.
Steven Chabinsky
is a general counsel & chief risk officer for the CrowdStrike Services, and a commissioner for the Commission on Enhancing National
Cybersecurity.
Ajay
Banga is a commissioner for the Commission
on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, and the president & CEO for MasterCard Incorporated.
Merit E. Janow is
a director at MasterCard Incorporated,
and a member of the Belizean Grove.
Mary Agnes
Wilderotter is a member of the Belizean
Grove, a commissioner for
the Commission on Enhancing National
Cybersecurity, and a trustee at the Committee
for Economic Development.
Keith B.
Alexander is a
commissioner for the Commission on
Enhancing National Cybersecurity, a co-founder for the IronNet Cybersecurity Inc., a friend of Barbara G. Fast, and was a director at the National Security Agency
(NSA).
Barbara G. Fast
is a friend of Keith B. Alexander, a
director at the Intelligence and
National Security Alliance, and was a VP for the CGI Group Inc.
CGI Group Inc.
was a contractor that developed the Healthcare.gov
web site for Obamacare, and paid
speaker fees to William J. Clinton.
Donna S. Morea was
an EVP for the CGI Group Inc., and a
trustee at the Committee for Economic
Development.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Committee for Economic Development, and the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace (think tank).
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, the founder of Soros Fund Management, a board member for the International Crisis Group, a friend of Michael Douglas, was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote
Open Society, and Mark Schwartz was
his senior adviser.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Committee for Economic Development, the Brookings Institution (think tank), and the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace (think tank).
Mark Schwartz was
the president & CEO for Soros Fund
Management, a director at MasterCard
Incorporated, George Soros’s
senior adviser, and is a director at the
U.S.-China Business Council.
William M. Daley
was a director at the U.S.-China
Business Council, the chief of staff for the Barack Obama administration, and is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Commercial Club of Chicago, Members Directory A-Z (Past
Research)
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Valerie B. Jarrett
is a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, the senior adviser for the Barack
Obama administration, and her great uncle is Vernon E. Jordan Jr.
R. Eden Martin is
the president of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, and counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP.
Michelle Obama
was a lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP.
Sidley Austin
LLP is the lobby firm for MasterCard
International Incorporated.
MasterCard International Incorporated is a subsidiary of MasterCard
Incorporated.
Barack
Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin
LLP.
Newton N. Minow
is a senior counsel at Sidley Austin LLP,
and a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago.
Cyrus F.
Freidheim Jr. is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Thomas E. Donilon
was a trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), the White House deputy national security adviser
for the Barack Obama administration,
a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), a 2008 Bilderberg
conference participant (think tank), and is a commissioner for the Commission on Enhancing National
Cybersecurity.
Steven Chabinsky
is a commissioner for the Commission on
Enhancing National Cybersecurity, and a general counsel & chief risk
officer for the CrowdStrike Services.
Jessica Tuchman Mathews was an honorary
trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), the president of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think tank), a board member for the International Crisis Group, is a
director at the Nuclear Threat
Initiative (think tank), a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg
(think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Ed Griffin’s interview with
Norman Dodd in 1982
(The investigation into the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace uncovered the plans for population
control by involving the United States in war)
Yegor Gaidar was a
board member for the International
Crisis Group, and a prime minister for Russia.
Igor S. Ivanov was a board member for
the International Crisis Group, a
minister of foreign affairs for Russia,
and is a director at the Nuclear Threat
Initiative (think tank).
Michael Douglas
is a director at the Nuclear Threat
Initiative (think tank), and a friend of George Soros.
Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think
tank) was a funder for the Nuclear
Threat Initiative (think tank).
William J. Burns
is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think
tank), and was a U.S. ambassador for Russia.
James F. Collins
is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), was a U.S. ambassador for Russia, and a senior advisor for the Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP.
Vernon E. Jordan
Jr. is a senior counsel for Akin,
Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, an honorary trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), Valerie B. Jarrett’s great uncle, a
director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg
conference participant (think tank).
Bashar al-Assad
is supporting Russia politically
& militarily, the president of Syria,
supporting the Syrian Electronic Army
(a hacker group), and permitted rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in Syria.
Syrian
Electronic Army reportedly hacked Amnesty
International, and the Human Rights
Watch.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for Amnesty
International, the Human Rights Watch, and the Committee for Economic Development.
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, Jonathan
Soros’s father, was a benefactor for the Human Rights Watch, and was the chairman for the Foundation to
Promote Open Society.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for Amnesty International, the Human Rights Watch, the Committee for Economic Development, and
the New America Foundation.
Mary Agnes
Wilderotter is a trustee at the Committee
for Economic Development, a member of the Belizean Grove, and a commissioner for the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity.
Steven Chabinsky
is a commissioner for the Commission on
Enhancing National Cybersecurity, and a general counsel & chief risk
officer for the CrowdStrike Services.
Democratic
National Committee (DNC) is a CrowdStrike Services client.
Maria Elena
Durazo is the vice chair for the Democratic
National Committee (DNC), a member of the Think Long Committee for California, and was the vice chair for the
2008 Democratic National Convention
Committee.
Eric E. Schmidt is a member of the Think Long Committee for California,
the chairman emeritus for the New America Foundation, the chairman for Google Inc.,
was and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Google's Eric Schmidt
talks about how to run the world (not that he wants to)
June 9, 2008 | 3:48 pm
It was meant to be an
inspiring moment ...
...as Schmidt wrapped
up a speech to the Economic Club
of Washington during a luncheon in a packed
ballroom at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Click here for an audio clip of Schmidt's comments.
The appearance was a
homecoming of sorts for Schmidt. Vernon
E. Jordan Jr., the club's president and a
former President Clinton advisor, noted that Schmidt was born a few blocks away
from the hotel at George Washington University Hospital, and grew up in the
Northern Virginia suburbs. His mother, Ellie Schmidt, was in the audience.
Jonathan Soros is
a director at the New America Foundation,
George Soros’s son, and was a deputy
chairman for the Soros Fund Management.
Mark Schwartz was
the president & CEO for Soros Fund
Management, a director at MasterCard
Incorporated, George Soros’s
senior adviser, and is a director at the
U.S.-China Business Council.
David M.
Rubenstein is a director at the
U.S.-China Business Council, a co-chairman for the Brookings Institution (think tank), and the president of the Economic Club of Washington.
Vernon E. Jordan
Jr. is an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution
(think tank), Valerie B. Jarrett’s great uncle, a
director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), a senior
counsel for Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer
& Feld, LLP, was the president of the Economic Club of Washington, and a 2008 Bilderberg conference
participant (think tank).
James F. Collins
is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), was a senior advisor for the Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, a U.S. ambassador for Russia, and is a senior associate at
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank).
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