While my taking umbrage implies, for example, that I find the bizarre claims of Russia hacking the US election without evidence, offensive- (Too bad Wikipedia doesn’t take umbrage to such absurdity) The CIA's UMBRAGE Program takes an entirely different type of offence: a transgression of the law; the act of attacking- to a whole new level Sadly, no. This is serious stuffThe CIA’s UMBRAGE programme could provide us all a glimpse into how it was the CIA, er I mean, Russia hacked the US election. If we are to believe the claims at all. Could UMBRAGE be employed in other situations? Seems likely. Thoughts?To understand the direction we're heading in let’s define “umbrage” as employed by the CIA programme
5.a shadowy appearance or semblance of something.
Umbrage... A shadowy appearance or semblence of something- semblance, of course, being related directly to resemblance. A shadowy appearance resembling something- umbrageWikiLeaks files detail CIA 'UMBRAGE' project, which would allow spies to pin attacks on other countriesThe program allows the CIA, to pin a hack on others, by leaving a shadow/y appearance resembling something....done by another.
"The CIA had a special programme allowing it to trick people into thinking they had been hacked by other countries, according to WikiLeaks.The agency was cataloguing the hacking methods of outside cyber attackers, including those from Russia, according to files published by the organisation. Once it had them catalogued, it could use them to break into other countries or people's computers or phones – making it look like a different country had done so.The project, called UMBRAGE, is just one of a range of different hacking tools that appear to be have been revealed by the leakUMBRAGE works in part by getting around the problems of those hacking techniques. Any cyber attack inevitably leaves a trace of how it was done – but by cataloguing other hackers' tricks, those traces could look like they come from someone else entirely."The CIA's Remote Devices Branch's UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques 'stolen' from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation," WikiLeaks wrote in its release. "With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the "fingerprints" of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from."The UMBRAGE project includes a variety of cyber weapons, including tools that can allow data to be deleted, webcams to be spied on and various other survey techniques, according to the documents"
Therefore the CIA could have been the party responsible for the DNC hacks and subsequent email leaks blamed on the Russians - and isn't choosing the bear such an obvious moniker... I don't know? Why not pick vodka ;)
Wikipedia:
In October 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama used the red phone line to directly contact Putin and issue a warning to him regarding the cyber attacks.[8] Russian officials have repeatedly denied involvement in any DNC leaks or hacks.[9][10][11]
"In June 2016, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) first stated that the Russian hacker groups Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear had penetrated their campaign servers and leaked information via the Guccifer 2.0 online persona.[24][25]"
Every hacking technique leaves a “fingerprint” which, when collated, can be used to connect different attacks and tie them to the same culprit.The CIA’s Remote Development Branch (RDB)’s Umbrage sub-group collects an archive of hacking exploits created by other actors, like Russia and other hackers, and leaves this false trace for others to detect.
Hacking Team
An Umbrage document shows how the agency mined information from a breach of Italian “offensive security” vendor Hacking Team, that boasts governmental and law enforcement clients.Some 400GB of data including “browser credential stealing” and “six different zero-day exploits” was released in the breach, which Umbrage studied and added to its repository.
#Vault7 - there goes the whole CIA narrative about Russian hacking of the 2016 election. https://t.co/VTikpCut5Ppic.twitter.com/2gkY9CFD88— John Hanson (@Crayz9000) March 7, 2017
While the documents released don’t tie Crowdstrike to the CIA’s Umbrage program, the data demonstrates how easily fingerprints can be manipulated, and how the CIA’s vast collection of existing malware can be employed to disguise its own actions.
Crowdstrike, a private security firm linked to the Atlantic Council, found the hackers who accessed the DNC emails
Former Pentagon official Michael Maloof says that by using Russian “fingerprints” the CIA may have deliberately put the blame for hacking on the Russians.
“Apparently they were able to obtain Russian malware and then they can turn that around and make it look like [attacks] were coming from Russia. And that gets into a political narrative that we’re hearing these days of hacking and what have you, blaming it all on the Russians.