The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The Trojan's Horse?

[Jon Kibler-2]

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Hash: SHA1

By now I am sure you are all aware of the Columbian military's freeing
of the FARC hostages. What I find most interesting is that this appears
to be a purely social engineering attack.

The English language media have not provided that much detail thus far
about the social engineering aspects of the operation. If anyone has
more information regarding how the rescue was social engineered, please
post it to this thread.

Just based on what I have seen thus far, this may turn out to be one of
the greatest social engineering attacks in military history.

Jon Kibler
- --
Jon R. Kibler
Chief Technical Officer
Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.
Charleston, SC  USA
o: 843-849-8214
c: 843-224-2494
s: 843-564-4224

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[ddidier]

Jon,
I'm interested in this topic but I don't know much about it.  Can you
share with us what you know about the social engineering aspects of this
attack?  I too am very interested.

Thanks,
Dan

www.NetSecureIA.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: listbounce@...
[mailto:listbounce@...]

> On Behalf Of Jon Kibler
> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:57 AM
> To: security-basics@...
> Subject: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
> Trojan's Horse?
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> By now I am sure you are all aware of the Columbian military's freeing
> of the FARC hostages. What I find most interesting is that this

appears
> to be a purely social engineering attack.
>
> The English language media have not provided that much detail thus far
> about the social engineering aspects of the operation. If anyone has
> more information regarding how the rescue was social engineered,
please
> post it to this thread.
>
> Just based on what I have seen thus far, this may turn out to be one
of

> the greatest social engineering attacks in military history.
>
> Jon Kibler
> - --
> Jon R. Kibler
> Chief Technical Officer
> Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.
> Charleston, SC  USA
> o: 843-849-8214
> c: 843-224-2494
> s: 843-564-4224
>
> My PGP Fingerprint is:
> BAA2 1F2C 5543 5D25 4636 A392 515C 5045 CF39 4253
>
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> zEAAn3/QlrgzrhkSMlXC8e1fIccOE8C4
> =QZ9T
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>
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[Carlos Thompson-2]

Most of the details I can tell are from mass media and declarations by
government and military officers, and be the freed, so I might be wrong and
partial in many details.

The social engineering part of the operation begun something like a year
ago, by infiltrating both the keepers and the Central[1] Command of the
FARC.  For the infiltration they might have used both outsiders that gain
trust, and prospective desertors from the FARC that already were in such
trust possitions.

Infiltration might have other purposes than just this operation.  The
killing of "Raúl Reyes", the killing of "Iván Ríos" and the confirmation of
the death of "Manuel Marulanda" were possible by such infiltration.

Infiltration at that level might not have been possible without some
technological intel.  Internal communications in the FARC are mostly broken,
and the main reason is that radio communications are rutinely intercepted
and localized, and followed by bombings, so the FARC is keeping their
communications to a minimum.

[1] Some have proposed that it would be incorrect to use a term such as
Central Command to the power structure of the FARC now-a-days.  Their
command structure would be pretty much broken by now.

Now, with broken communications, the infiltrated personell should gain trust
into the FARC command, and then prepare the trojan horse.

A supposed NGO would transport the kidnaped from their current location in
Guaviare province to some other location where one of the Chiefs, probably
"Alfonso Cano", were.  First, the FARC should know that the Government has a
far superior control of air space than any kind of control an NGO or the
FARC could use.  The operation was not supposed to be a liberation
operation, or a humanitary medical aid operation, covered by diplomatic
channels from a neighboring government, or the Red Cross, or some other kind
of legitimacy.  So the FARC leaders should have been convinced that 1) an
NGO would be willing to transport the kidnapped from one captivity to
another rather than trying to free them. 2) The operation would be safe
enough.

Probably, and this is just speculation from my part, the FARC is living in
self-delussion, that they have enough support from foreign organizations and
that they still can win the war, otherwise is hard to me to explain they
would trust their most valuable assess to such a risky operation.  The other
possibility is that infiltration has directly reached the captor's leader
"César", or his luitenant "Gafas" (who were suposedly captured inside the
helicopters).

Anyhow, this was indeed a social engineering attack.  Details are still to
be known.


-- Carlos Eugenio Thompson Pinzón
   Investigador
   thompson@...

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce@... [mailto:listbounce@...] On
Behalf Of Jon Kibler
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 7:57 AM
To: security-basics@...
Subject: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The Trojan's
Horse?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

By now I am sure you are all aware of the Columbian military's freeing of
the FARC hostages. What I find most interesting is that this appears to be a
purely social engineering attack.

The English language media have not provided that much detail thus far about
the social engineering aspects of the operation. If anyone has more
information regarding how the rescue was social engineered, please post it
to this thread.

Just based on what I have seen thus far, this may turn out to be one of the
greatest social engineering attacks in military history.

Jon Kibler
- --
Jon R. Kibler
Chief Technical Officer
Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.
Charleston, SC  USA
o: 843-849-8214
c: 843-224-2494
s: 843-564-4224

My PGP Fingerprint is:
BAA2 1F2C 5543 5D25 4636 A392 515C 5045 CF39 4253


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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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[Harrison, Jonathan]

Could you elaborate on this please?  I have been unable to discover any
news articles that would lead me to believe this was a massive social
engineering operation.  Thanks.

Jonathan Harrison

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce@... [mailto:listbounce@...]
On Behalf Of Jon Kibler
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 7:57 AM
To: security-basics@...
Subject: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
Trojan's Horse?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

By now I am sure you are all aware of the Columbian military's freeing
of the FARC hostages. What I find most interesting is that this appears
to be a purely social engineering attack.

The English language media have not provided that much detail thus far
about the social engineering aspects of the operation. If anyone has
more information regarding how the rescue was social engineered, please
post it to this thread.

Just based on what I have seen thus far, this may turn out to be one of
the greatest social engineering attacks in military history.

Jon Kibler
- --
Jon R. Kibler
Chief Technical Officer
Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.
Charleston, SC  USA
o: 843-849-8214
c: 843-224-2494
s: 843-564-4224

My PGP Fingerprint is:
BAA2 1F2C 5543 5D25 4636 A392 515C 5045 CF39 4253


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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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[ddidier]

As a follow up to this topic, I found the following:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7486896.stm

Quite an interesting story!

Dan
www.NetSecureIA.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: listbounce@...
[mailto:listbounce@...]
> On Behalf Of Daniel I. Didier
> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:04 AM
> To: Jon.Kibler@...; security-basics@...
> Subject: RE: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
> Trojan's Horse?
>
> Jon,
> I'm interested in this topic but I don't know much about it.  Can you
> share with us what you know about the social engineering aspects of
this

> attack?  I too am very interested.
>
> Thanks,
> Dan
>
> www.NetSecureIA.com
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: listbounce@...
> [mailto:listbounce@...]
> > On Behalf Of Jon Kibler
> > Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:57 AM
> > To: security-basics@...
> > Subject: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
> > Trojan's Horse?
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > By now I am sure you are all aware of the Columbian military's

freeing
> > of the FARC hostages. What I find most interesting is that this
> appears
> > to be a purely social engineering attack.
> >
> > The English language media have not provided that much detail thus
far

> > about the social engineering aspects of the operation. If anyone has
> > more information regarding how the rescue was social engineered,
> please
> > post it to this thread.
> >
> > Just based on what I have seen thus far, this may turn out to be one
> of
> > the greatest social engineering attacks in military history.
> >
> > Jon Kibler
> > - --
> > Jon R. Kibler
> > Chief Technical Officer
> > Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.
> > Charleston, SC  USA
> > o: 843-849-8214
> > c: 843-224-2494
> > s: 843-564-4224
> >
> > My PGP Fingerprint is:
> > BAA2 1F2C 5543 5D25 4636 A392 515C 5045 CF39 4253
> >
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
> > iEYEARECAAYFAkhszJIACgkQUVxQRc85QlOU8gCfY0mZpxg+Bv2VG3+Vu3Ip7eec
> > zEAAn3/QlrgzrhkSMlXC8e1fIccOE8C4
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[Rivest, Philippe-2]

Same for me. Here is what I got from my very quick lookup
http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/monde/336475.FR.php?rss=true&xtor=RSS-450

French:
Comme les otages séquestrés étaient divisés en trois groupes, l'armée,
invoquant grâce à ses agents infiltrés parmi les gardiens guérilleros un faux
ordre d'Alfonso Cano, le nouveau chef des Farc, a obtenu que les otages
soient réunis "soit-disant toujours sur ordre de Cano" par leurs geôliers et
que leur transfert se déroule dans un lieu du sud du pays.


English: (should be more or less accurate forgive me!)
Since the hostage were divided in 3 groups, the army, stating that since that
there infiltrated agent issued a false order to Alfonso Cano, the new leader
of FARC, got to unite the hostage "with the false order of Cano" by there
"**agents**" and that there transfer be made to a location in the south of
the country.


Well we all know that after the the helicopter took the hostage to a safe
place.


CNN states that:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/07/03/hostage.drama/index.html
+The agents gained the rebels' trust and rose to the top of FARC's
+leadership council as well as a team assigned to guard the hostages.

+When the time was ripe, the moles used the authority they'd gained within
+the group to order the 15 hostages moved from three separate locations to
+one central area, and the game was on

+Once the hostages -- including former presidential candidate Ingrid
+Betancourt and three American contractors -- were gathered, the agents
+ordered a 90-mile march through the steamy jungle, Montoya said


+The agents told their FARC comrades that an "international mission" -- such
+as the Red Cross or a U.N. delegation -- was coming to visit the hostages,
+Montoya said.


+The helicopter crew told the 60 or so real rebels that the chopper was
+going to ferry the hostages to the meeting with the "international
+mission," Montoya said.

+All 15 hostages were handcuffed and placed aboard the helicopter, along
+with two of their guards, leaving the rest of the FARC detachment on the
+ground.

+Once the chopper was up and safely away from the landing zone, the fake
+rebels persuaded the real ones aboard to hand them their weapons. Moments
+later, both rebels were on the floor of the aircraft, cuffed and
+blindfolded by their erstwhile comrades, Betancourt said


Merci / Thanks
Philippe Rivest, CEH
Vérificateur interne en sécurité de l'information
Courriel: Privest@...
Téléphone: [phone]
www.transforce.ca


-----Message d'origine-----
De : listbounce@... [mailto:listbounce@...] De la
part de Daniel I. Didier
Envoyé : 3 juillet 2008 11:04
À : Jon.Kibler@...; security-basics@...
Objet : RE: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
Trojan's Horse?

Jon,
I'm interested in this topic but I don't know much about it.  Can you
share with us what you know about the social engineering aspects of this
attack?  I too am very interested.

Thanks,
Dan

www.NetSecureIA.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: listbounce@...
[mailto:listbounce@...]

> On Behalf Of Jon Kibler
> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:57 AM
> To: security-basics@...
> Subject: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
> Trojan's Horse?
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> By now I am sure you are all aware of the Columbian military's freeing
> of the FARC hostages. What I find most interesting is that this

appears
> to be a purely social engineering attack.
>
> The English language media have not provided that much detail thus far
> about the social engineering aspects of the operation. If anyone has
> more information regarding how the rescue was social engineered,
please
> post it to this thread.
>
> Just based on what I have seen thus far, this may turn out to be one
of

> the greatest social engineering attacks in military history.
>
> Jon Kibler
> - --
> Jon R. Kibler
> Chief Technical Officer
> Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.
> Charleston, SC  USA
> o: 843-849-8214
> c: 843-224-2494
> s: 843-564-4224
>
> My PGP Fingerprint is:
> BAA2 1F2C 5543 5D25 4636 A392 515C 5045 CF39 4253
>
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iEYEARECAAYFAkhszJIACgkQUVxQRc85QlOU8gCfY0mZpxg+Bv2VG3+Vu3Ip7eec
> zEAAn3/QlrgzrhkSMlXC8e1fIccOE8C4
> =QZ9T
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>
>
>
>
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[ken kousky]

What I find most intriguing is how the McCain campaign got into the loop - I
assume a casual coincidence inspired by friends in high places.

KWK

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce@... [mailto:listbounce@...] On
Behalf Of Harrison, Jonathan
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 12:21 PM
To: security-basics@...
Subject: RE: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
Trojan's Horse?

Could you elaborate on this please?  I have been unable to discover any
news articles that would lead me to believe this was a massive social
engineering operation.  Thanks.

Jonathan Harrison

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce@... [mailto:listbounce@...]
On Behalf Of Jon Kibler
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 7:57 AM
To: security-basics@...
Subject: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
Trojan's Horse?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

By now I am sure you are all aware of the Columbian military's freeing
of the FARC hostages. What I find most interesting is that this appears
to be a purely social engineering attack.

The English language media have not provided that much detail thus far
about the social engineering aspects of the operation. If anyone has
more information regarding how the rescue was social engineered, please
post it to this thread.

Just based on what I have seen thus far, this may turn out to be one of
the greatest social engineering attacks in military history.

Jon Kibler
- --
Jon R. Kibler
Chief Technical Officer
Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.
Charleston, SC  USA
o: 843-849-8214
c: 843-224-2494
s: 843-564-4224

My PGP Fingerprint is:
BAA2 1F2C 5543 5D25 4636 A392 515C 5045 CF39 4253


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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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zEAAn3/QlrgzrhkSMlXC8e1fIccOE8C4
=QZ9T
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[Jairo Pantoja Moncayo]

Hello all... as a Colombian working on information security, I can tell you
that this operation (Jaque Operation) was carried out with lots of pressure
from European countries that were opposite to this kind of military rescues.
As Colombians, we are very proud for our government to succeed this very
difficult mission that gave a lesson to more than one opposite :)

Follow this link to get more information of this Intel-security operation:

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/07/se
curitymatters_0710?currentPage=all


Best Regards,

Jairo Pantoja Moncayo
www.digiware.com.co



-----Mensaje original-----
De: listbounce@... [mailto:listbounce@...] En
nombre de Daniel I. Didier
Enviado el: jueves, 03 de julio de 2008 10:04 a.m.
Para: Jon.Kibler@...; security-basics@...
Asunto: RE: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
Trojan's Horse?

Jon,
I'm interested in this topic but I don't know much about it.  Can you
share with us what you know about the social engineering aspects of this
attack?  I too am very interested.

Thanks,
Dan

www.NetSecureIA.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: listbounce@...
[mailto:listbounce@...]

> On Behalf Of Jon Kibler
> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:57 AM
> To: security-basics@...
> Subject: The Greatest Military Social Engineering Attack Since The
> Trojan's Horse?
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> By now I am sure you are all aware of the Columbian military's freeing
> of the FARC hostages. What I find most interesting is that this

appears
> to be a purely social engineering attack.
>
> The English language media have not provided that much detail thus far
> about the social engineering aspects of the operation. If anyone has
> more information regarding how the rescue was social engineered,
please
> post it to this thread.
>
> Just based on what I have seen thus far, this may turn out to be one
of

> the greatest social engineering attacks in military history.
>
> Jon Kibler
> - --
> Jon R. Kibler
> Chief Technical Officer
> Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.
> Charleston, SC  USA
> o: 843-849-8214
> c: 843-224-2494
> s: 843-564-4224
>
> My PGP Fingerprint is:
> BAA2 1F2C 5543 5D25 4636 A392 515C 5045 CF39 4253
>
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iEYEARECAAYFAkhszJIACgkQUVxQRc85QlOU8gCfY0mZpxg+Bv2VG3+Vu3Ip7eec
> zEAAn3/QlrgzrhkSMlXC8e1fIccOE8C4
> =QZ9T
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>
>
>
> ==================================================
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