Day: September 11, 2024

Researchers observed the RansomHub ransomware group using the TDSSKiller tool to disable endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems.

The RansomHub ransomware gang is using the TDSSKiller tool to disable endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems, Malwarebytes ThreatDown Managed Detection and Response (MDR) team observed.

TDSSKiller a legitimate tool developed by the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky to remove rootkits, the software could also disable EDR solutions through a command line script or batch file.

The experts noticed that the ransomware group also used the LaZagne tool to harvest credentials. During the case investigated by MDR, experts observed that LaZagne generated 60 file writes, likely logging extracted credentials, and performed 1 file deletion, likely to hide traces of the credential-harvesting activity.

“Although both TDSSKiller and LaZagne have been used by attackers for years, this is the first record of RansomHub using them in its operations, with the TTPs not listed in CISA’s recently published advisory on RansomHub.” reads the Malwarebytes MDR’s report. “The tools were deployed following initial reconnaissance and network probing through admin group enumeration, such as net1 group "Enterprise Admins" /do. “

RansomHub used TDSSKiller with the -dcsvc flag to try disabling critical security services, specifically targeting Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Service (MBAMService). The command aimed to disrupt security defenses by disabling this service.

Command line: tdsskiller.exe -dcsvc MBAMService where the -dcsvc flag was used to target specific services. In this instance, attackers attempted to disable MBAMService.

RansomHub is a ransomware as a service (RaaS) that was employed in the operations of multiple threat actors. Microsoft reported that RansomHub was observed being deployed in post-compromise activity by the threat actor tracked as Manatee Tempest following initial access by Mustard Tempest via FakeUpdates/Socgholish infections.

Experts believe RansomHub is a rebrand of the Knight ransomware. Knight, also known as Cyclops 2.0, appeared in the threat landscape in May 2023. The malware targets multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, macOS, ESXi, and Android. The operators used a double extortion model for their RaaS operation.

This isn’t the first time that security experts documented the use of the tool developed by Kaspersky.

The Sangfor Cyber Guardian Incident Response team reported that the LockBit ransomware gang used the -dcsvc parameter of TDSSKiller as part of their attack chain.

Attackers use legitimate tools because are not blocked by security solutions.

Malwarebytes shared indicators of compromise (IoCs) for these attacks and recommends:

• Isolate critical systems through network segmentation to limit lateral movement.
• Restrict Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) exploits by implementing controls to monitor and restrict vulnerable drivers like TDSSKiller, especially when executed with suspicious command-line flags such as -dcsvc. Quarantining or blocking known misuse patterns while allowing legitimate uses can prevent BYOVD attacks.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, RansomHub ransomware) 

As America’s 2024 presidential campaign enters its stretch run after last night’s debate, it is tempting to believe that electing one ticket or the other will solve all our problems. Have no doubt: this is a hugely consequential election, and the slate the U.S. people elect will have enormous power to shape the future of America’s foreign and national security policy. But we must not ignore that the United States’ deepest constitutional and national security challenge involves not personalities, but structure.

Consider two hypotheticals. First, upon resuming office, could Donald Trump by tweet unilaterally withdraw the United States from every treaty, agreement, and international institution to which the United States is a party? If not, what legally could stop him? Alternatively, if Kamala Harris should become president, would current law allow her unilaterally to back into a wider war in the Middle East, out of a desire to help Israel fight Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Iran-backed militias in the Red Sea? If that would be illegal, what is to stop her?

In both cases, the sobering answer is: probably nothing. Our 21st century history teaches that in both cases, the president could likely do it and claim it is lawful, Congress would likely defer, and the courts would either decline to adjudicate or rubber-stamp the president’s actions on the merits. So the problem is bigger than personalities. The president currently has too much discretion to take acts that seem both unwise and illegal without legal check or consequence. The deeper question is: how have nearly 250 years of American history so distorted structural features of our national security system to transform the chief defender of our national security, the president, into today’s biggest potential national security threat?

My new book The National Security Constitution in the 21st Century explains the confluence of interactive institutional incentives that has brought us to this precarious state of affairs. The book culminates nearly five decades of studying the constitutional conduct of America’s foreign policy, from both inside and outside the government. When I first studied this topic during the Iran-Contra Affair, nearly four decades ago, I argued that a subset of constitutional norms, precedents, and framework laws best understood as “The National Security Constitution” govern the making of U.S. foreign policy. I further argued that two divergent constitutional visions have competed for dominance over our nation’s history: the Framers’ founding vision of balanced institutional participation, captured in Justice Robert Jackson’s landmark concurrence in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, versus the unilateralist vision of the president as “the sole organ of our Nation in foreign affairs” trumpeted by Justice George Sutherland in United States v. Curtiss Wright Export Corp. (which, when I first joined the Justice Department was called, only half-jokingly, “the Curtiss-Wright, so I’m right cite.”).

As my book chronicles, the Founders sought above all to avoid installing a new American king. But the Curtiss-Wright vision found adherents even at the Founding and has since asserted itself repeatedly over the nearly 250 years of American foreign policy; each time, the Youngstown vision has persistently clawed back. As recently as the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the Youngstown vision continued to hold sway. But with the successive 21st century presidencies of George W. Bush (“Bush 43”), Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, the Curtiss-Wright vision has taken hold with increasing ferocity. Bush 43 and Trump seized unilateral power proactively, and in Trump’s case, with naked disdain for the rule of law. Obama and Biden, saddled with weak legislative majorities, grasped unilateralism reactively. But whether proactive or reactive, the presidential grab for unilateral power has continued, with successive presidents becoming victims as much as villains in a national security process in which they bear all of the public expectations, all of the responsibility, and ultimately, all of the blame. So with each presidency this century, the constitutional pendulum has swung further and further toward executive unilateralism, climaxing in Trump’s breathtaking assertion that Article II “gives me the right to do whatever I want,” his post-defeat call for “the termination of all rules…even those found in the Constitution,” and his Supreme Court’s jaw-dropping decision in Trump v. United States apparently immunizing him for any foreign policy or national security actions so long as they can be dubbed “official.”

Many factors, both external and internal, have contributed to the rise of executive unilateralism. External factors include the end of the Cold War and the rise of a multipolar world; the growing power of nonstate actors; and pervasive threats triggered by the September 11th attacks, the Covid pandemic, and the rising threat of climate change. Internal factors include the wildly disproportionate growth of the national security bureaucracy; the collapse of the bipartisan legislative process; the decentralization of congressional foreign policy decision-making and legal advice; and the federal judiciary’s increasing proclivity to avoid adjudicating or to rubber-stamp dubious executive actions based on what Justice Sonia Sotomayor has dubbed “national security masquerades.” But indispensable actors in this process have been executive branch lawyers. (I have served as one for many years of my career, but for reasons detailed in the book, I stand by the advice I gave). Understandably, the president’s lawyers address each sequential crisis by trying to maximize the president’s ability flexibly to contain and counteract national security threats. But ironically their accumulated precedents, each written to help neutralize the particular urgent national security challenge at hand, now collectively enable the very real prospect that the president will become the greatest national security threat of all.

If this diagnosis is correct, what is to be done? If the problem is structural, the answer cannot simply be stopping Donald Trump’s re-election, although his return to power would surely push the U.S. constitutional system to the breaking point. As dangerous—and as last night’s debate showed, increasingly unhinged—as Trump is, we can easily envision even more unilateralist and dangerous presidents than Trump: populist autocrats inclined to invade foreign countries, shatter alliances, and undermine checks and balances more systematically and competently. We cannot simply rely on elections to throw the rascals out, when there will always be other rascals more adept at stealing elections and grabbing unilateral power.

Our alternatives, quite simply, are acceptance, apathy, despair, or reform: now or later. In an era of legislative deadlock and political polarization, comprehensive national security legislative reform would undeniably be difficult if not impossible to obtain. Instead, the solution must be a mosaic of reforms—some executive, some legislative, and some judicial—implemented over time, and designed individually and collectively to counteract current institutional incentives. Our goal should be to dampen the dysfunctional institutional interaction that keeps driving presidents to act or react unilaterally, Congress to do nothing, and the courts to rubber-stamp and defer. If we are serious about reform, those efforts must extend to all three branches of government.

My book suggests executive restructuring by creating mechanisms to promote better national security legal advice, law enforcement independence, to reduce conflicts of interest, restrain military adventurism, and reform the bureaucracy. It suggests that Congress reform itself by creating a Joint Committee for National Security, a Congressional Legal Adviser, and better congressional tools to restrain executive unilateralism. The courts, I argue, should reduce unnecessary barriers to justiciability (as the Supreme Court began to do by rigorizing the political question doctrine in Zivotofsky v. Clinton) and modify judicial doctrines—such as the presumption against extraterritoriality and the recent Court’s unwillingness to look to foreign law in constitutional interpretation—that are ill-suited to an age of globalization. And over time, proponents of reform must empower other counterweights to executive power, including states and localities, the media, U.S. allies, private actors, and black-letter Restatements of Foreign Relations Law. The penultimate chapter explains how meaningful reform could be achieved in various areas of national security law: warmaking, international lawmaking and agreement breaking, intelligence oversight, information control, and protection of the democratic electoral process.

I harbor no illusions that such reforms will come quickly, but beginning the process is not just necessary, but a useful goal in itself; just starting a decades-long national security reform process will likely spur further reforms. Skeptics may scoff that our current extreme polarization makes even modest reform unobtainable. But in just the last few months, both U.S. presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer made unequivocal commitments to country over party. As the 21st century unfolds, I refuse to believe that there will not come a time when we can return to a shared national commitment not to “America First,” but rather, to being “Americans First.”

Nor do I have any serious concerns that such reforms would hamstring the presidency. Serving under four presidents has taught me that in genuine emergencies, executive power always finds a way. But under our current system, the president goes it alone, and the courts and Congress wash their hands of responsibility. Structural reform is sorely needed to ensure a strong president within a strong constitutional system of checks and balances. In the end, the Framers understood an important and enduring truth: that our national security is best protected if the power to conduct America’s foreign policy remains a power shared.

IMAGE: An image of the White House (via Getty Images).

The post America’s Overlooked National Security Threat appeared first on Just Security.

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A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the past 24 hours. Here’s today’s news:

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR 

An Israeli airstrike in the West Bank early today killed five Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it targeted a group of militants in the city of Tubas. AP News reports.

Israeli airstrikes on a designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza yesterday killed 19 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The reported death toll is lower than what had been provided by the Gaza Civil Defense, which earlier said their services had recovered 40 bodies from the site of the strike. Meanwhile, weapons experts and an analysis by the New York Times found strong evidence that Israel used 2,000-pound bombs in the strike. Ephrat Livni, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, and Abu Bakr Bashir report for the New York Times.

The IDF released a video of a Gaza tunnel where it says six hostages were held in “horrific conditions” before they were murdered by Hamas. The video was filmed by the military last Friday and made public yesterday. Maayan Lubell reports for Reuters.

An Israeli official has floated the option of offering Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar safe passage out of Gaza once all remaining hostages in the Palestinian territory are released. Meanwhile, Israel’s Defense Minister said yesterday that its forces are close to completing their Gaza mission and their focus will turn to the country’s northern border with Lebanon. Hira Humayan and Tara John report for CNN and Reuters reports.

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — U.S. RESPONSE 

The Israeli military yesterday said it was “highly likely” it “unintentionally” killed a U.S. citizen near a demonstration last week in the West Bank. Responding to the comments, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for “fundamental changes” in the way the IDF operates in the West Bank, “including changes to their rules of engagement.” Blinken’s comments seemed to contrast with President Biden’s remarks hours later. “Apparently it was an accident, ricocheted off the ground and just got hit by accident. I’m working that out now,” Biden said. Karen DeYoung, Michael Birnbaum, and Loveday Morris report for the Washington Post.

Blinken asked British Foreign Secretary David Lammy last month what it would take for the U.K. to reconsider its Israeli weapons suspension, according to two U.S. officials. Lammy reportedly replied that it would involve a cease-fire and access by international human rights organizations to Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Erin Banco, Nahal Toosi, and Robbie Gramer report for POLITICO.

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — REGIONAL RESPONSE 

In his first statement as Hamas’s overall leader, Yahya Sinwar yesterday congratulated Algeria’s President on his reelection and thanked the country for its support to the Palestinian cause. AP News reports.

ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH CONFLICT

Israel launched several strikes on southern Lebanon over the past day, including one that killed a senior Hezbollah commander. Hezbollah confirmed the killing and said it responded by launching “dozens” of rockets and several drones toward northern Israel. No casualties were reported, according to the IDF. Mohammed Tawfeeq, Irene Nasser, and Kareem Khadder report for CNN.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

President Biden has hinted at lifting restrictions on Ukraine using U.S. long-range missiles against Russia, saying the U.S. administration was “working that out now.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously warned such action could lead to “very serious problems.” Meanwhile, Sec. Blinken and U.K. Foreign Secretary Lammy are in Kyiv to discuss the issue with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy. Thomas Mackintosh reports for BBC News.

Beijing is giving Moscow “very substantial” help to strengthen its war machine, and in exchange, China is receiving top secret Russian military technology, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said yesterday. Stuart Lau reports for POLITICO.

The West is pushing Ukraine to think about a credible plan and realistic goals for what it can achieve in the next year of war, European diplomats say. Max Colchester and Laurence Norman report for the Wall Street Journal.

Ukraine is using “dragon drones” to spew fiery substances on Russia’s front lines, according to videos that have emerged online. Yuliya Talmazan reports for NBC News.

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS 

The United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany will impose sanctions on key Russian and Iranian entities after Russia sent “dozens” of troops to Iran to train on ballistic missiles, a Pentagon spokesperson said yesterday. The measures include restrictions on Iran Air’s ability to fly to the U.K. and Europe, and travel bans and asset freezes on several Iranians. Patrick Tucker reports for Defense One; Matt Murphy reports for BBC News.

Russia is close to signing a new bilateral treaty with Iran soon, state media quoted top security official Sergei Shoigu as saying today. Reuters reports.

Iran’s new reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian traveled to Iraq today on his first visit abroad, hoping to solidify Tehran’s ties to Baghdad. Qassim Abdul-Zahra reports for AP News.

Around 1,200 protesters clashed with police today at a major defense expo in Australia. Some demonstrators set trash cans alight and targeted police horses, according to local media. Police say 33 people have been arrested, as tensions sparked by global conflicts deepen anger toward the arms industry. Lex Harvey reports for CNN.

Mexico’s Senate voted 86-41 early today for a judicial overhaul. The amendment would abolish the current judicial system and give citizens the power to choose nearly all judges. Diplomats, business leaders, and legal scholars have expressed alarm over the measure, with U.S. officials saying the overhaul could pose “a major risk” to the democracy of its top trading partner. Mary Beth Sheridan reports for the Washington Post.

Pakistani police yesterday freed the president of the opposition party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a day after he was detained for allegedly inciting violence, his party said. AP News reports.

The Islamist candidate who lost Algeria’s presidential election three days ago filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court yesterday, citing “false figures” and contesting turnout rates. AFP reports via Le Monde.

Jamaica’s Prime Minister yesterday announced that his government will send an initial deployment of 24 security personnel to Haiti to bolster an international security mission aimed at helping battle gang violence. Reuters reports.

Nicaragua said yesterday “it was revoking the citizenship and seizing the property of 135 people who were expelled from the country last week after serving prison sentences in a government crackdown on dissent.” The Supreme Court of Justice announced the action in a press release. Gabriela Selser reports for AP News.

U.S. FOREIGN RELATIONS

The United States is gradually moving aircraft and commandos into coastal West Africa in a fight against Islamist militants. U.S. forces were evicted this summer from their regional stronghold in Niger, and now the Pentagon is aiming to adopt a smaller military footprint, including refurbishing an airfield in Benin, and stationing forces in Ivory Coast and Chad. Michael M. Phillips and Benoit Faucon report for the Wall Street Journal.

​​Iraqi security officials said an explosion targeted a U.S. military facility next to Baghdad airport late yesterday. The statement said Iraqi forces were unable to determine the “type or causes of the explosion, and no party has claimed responsibility for it.” No damage or casualties have been reported. Qassim Abdul-Zahra reports for AP News.

U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS

The 13 U.S. service members killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul in 2021 were honored posthumously yesterday in a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony at the Capitol. Kaia Hubbard and Melissa Quinn report for CBS News.

An alleged attack on a New York City store owner over a poster of Vice President Kamala Harris displayed in her window is being treated as a hate crime, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said yesterday. Bill Hutchinson reports for ABC News.

The Pentagon is urging the Senate to confirm Lt. Gen. Ronald Clark to a senior Army role after Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) announced he is blocking the promotion. Tuberville’s spokesperson said the senator “has concerns about Lt. Gen. Clark’s actions” during  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization, which had initially been clouded in secrecy. Rebecca Falconer reports for Axios.

A former CIA officer and contract linguist for the FBI who spied for China in exchange for bribes faces a decade in prison if a U.S. judge approves his plea agreement today. Jennifer Sinco Kelleher reports for AP News.

A jury has been selected and opening statements are expected today in the federal trial of three former Memphis police officers charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols. Two officers have already pleaded guilty to federal charges, with the remaining three officers facing life sentences if convicted. Robert Klemko reports for the Washington Post.

Jury deliberation is underway today in Florida in the trial of four activists accused of illegally acting as Russian agents to help the Kremlin sow political disharmony and meddle in U.S. elections. AP News reports.

The post Early Edition: September 11, 2024 appeared first on Just Security.

During the fall of 2022, Western support for defending Ukraine was achieving results that few had thought possible. A successful Ukrainian counteroffensive had pushed Russia out of Kharkiv, and it was on the verge of being forced out of Kherson too.

The successes were so rousing that President Joe Biden began to worry about Russia getting desperate and the potential risk of a nuclear escalation. In private remarks at a fundraiser, Biden reportedly said that the risk of nuclear “armageddon” was the highest it had been since the Cuban missile crisis.

After news of the comments broke, 30 progressive Democrats issued a letter echoing Biden’s concerns and urging the administration to pair support for Ukraine’s successes with a “proactive diplomatic push” to seek a ceasefire. The signatories were unequivocal that they supported Biden’s commitment to Ukraine. A draft of the letter had even come in for criticism from the grassroots supports of diplomacy for its staunch support of sending billions in arms to Ukraine.

It all seemed very reasonable, especially amid talk of nuclear war.

The lawmakers were torn to shreds.

The mild-mannered letter from the Congressional Progressive Caucus provoked wild political attacks, recriminations, and resignations. Factions of progressives, liberals, and Democrats feuded on Twitter. Headlines and talk shows took up the issue. The anti-diplomacy voices won the day: The letter would eventually be retracted, with its supporters taking a huge political hit.

Related

House Progressives Float Diplomatic Path Toward Ending War in Ukraine, Get Annihilated, Quickly “Clarify”

Today, however, the war is stuck. The momentum has shifted. And tens of thousands more Ukrainians and Russians have lost their lives. And even members of the foreign policy establishment are coming to realize it.

“I think it’s safe to say that Ukraine is unable to generate the combat capability needed to achieve military victory, and right now the momentum on the battlefield, despite Ukraine’s push into the Kursk region of Russia, favors Russia,” said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and international affairs professor at Georgetown University. “Because of that reality, I think that the Ukrainians themselves and Ukraine’s supporters in the West need to have truthful, even if painful, conversations about how to end this war sooner rather than later.”

In 2022, the progressives had been pilloried and cowed. Today, they look more prescient than ever.

The Backlash

At the time of its release, the CPC’s letter provoked a furious backlash. Washington’s foreign policy establishment, and even members of the progressives’ own party, melted down.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., went as far as to accuse his fellow House Democrats of offering an “olive branch to a war criminal who’s losing his war.”

Brandon Friedman, a former Obama administration official, said that progressives had just given “Republicans, the Kremlin and Russian propaganda networks an absolute gift with this letter.”

Joe Cirincione, a Washington national security analyst and figure in the progressive foreign policy world, called the letter an “incoherent mishmash of contradictory positions based on an outdated analysis of the war.”

“It was written when the war was stalemated, released when Ukraine is winning,” said Cirincione, who resigned from the Quincy Institute over the think tank’s call for diplomatic talks. “Of course the positions don’t make sense.”

Within 24 hours, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the caucus chair, withdrew the letter and issued a “clarification statement.” Other signatories acted like they were walking the letter back, though they were merely reiterating the unequivocal support for Ukraine’s defense that the letter itself had made clear. (Many of the lawmakers involved did not respond to my requests for comment.)

In a nearly 900-word statement, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., blamed “unfortunate timing” and doubled down on the idea that the U.S. should help Ukraine fight until the end. “All champions of democracy over autocracy — whether they call themselves progressives, conservatives or liberals — should be doing whatever we can to ensure that Ukraine wins this just war as quickly as possible,” he said.

A few voices of reason emerged, as a few members of Congress held fast. Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y, were among the few who publicly defended their call for diplomacy. “History shows that silencing debate in Congress about matters of war and peace never ends well,” Khanna said at the time.

Related

The Disturbing Groupthink Over the War in Ukraine

Even some former Obama officials were shocked by the response. Ben Rhodes criticized the “circular firing squad” against pro-diplomacy advocates on the left, saying there was “nothing objectionable in this letter whatsoever.”

Far from being an “outdated analysis,” as critics like Cirincione claimed, the letter’s strategy of using war successes to get a ceasefire seems today like it was far-sighted.

“Cycle of Persistent Violence”

Since the ill-fated letter, the war has ground on — with devastating results for the people of Ukraine. Ukraine is not in a position to win the war, nor does it have a stronger bargaining position in talks than it did in late 2022 when the CPC letter came out.

A New York Times report in August cited U.S. officials estimating the Ukrainian death toll at close to 70,000, with 100,000 to 120,000 wounded. Ukraine has lost a fifth of its population to migration, and many able-bodied men have been killed, severely injured, or are currently fighting and out of the workforce. CNN reported this week that desertion is a major problem for Ukraine.

Despite the heavy toll, Ukraine lost territory to Russia over the course of 2023, and Russian advances have only gained steam since then.

Former CIA Russia analyst George Beebe said that the conflict has become a war of attrition, so Ukrainians are losing bargaining leverage by the day. “They’re going to need Western help” to strike a compromise settlement with Russia, he said, adding that it would take robust U.S. involvement.

Has it benefited Ukraine to keep fighting? “No, I don’t think so,” Beebe told me. “Actually, Ukraine has lost a lot more people. It is on a path toward becoming a failed state.”

Despite the criticisms, despite many of its members caving, the CPC letter had been on to something. Now, Washington is playing catch-up, with Ukraine bearing the brunt of the lack of U.S. foresight and no one standing to gain as much as empowered Vladimir Putin.

Though the controversy around the CPC letter was almost immediately memory-holed, it would only be a few weeks before it started to look like pro-diplomacy advocates would eventually be vindicated.

A Washington Post report revealed that the Biden administration was privately encouraging Ukraine to show that it’s open to negotiations. Gen. Mark Milley, the since-retired chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined the growing group of people advocating for diplomacy to end the war. Citing the lesson of World War I, where the failure to negotiate led to millions of unnecessary deaths, Milley called on Russia and Ukraine to “seize the moment” and consider peace talks that winter.

For all the purportedly pro-Ukraine motivations behind the meltdown over the ceasefire letter, it is Ukrainians themselves who have most acutely felt the pain of continued war.

Many Ukrainians seem to understand this better than backers in Washington: Ukraine’s government reportedly charged nearly 19,000 soldiers with abandoning their positions in just the first four months of 2024. The same could be said for conscripted Russians forced to serve under Putin’s authoritarian drive to win the war.

“There are no protections for conscientious objectors in Ukraine or in Russia through this war,” said Bridget Moix, the general secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a progressive group that supports diplomacy. “We have to look at how we can support other ways to end this war, other ways to protect civilians, other ways to find a solution out of the violence now. We’re in a cycle of persistent violence that’s costing tremendous lives on both sides.”

Reduced Leverage

Though Ukrainian and American leaders have come to terms with Ukraine’s reduced negotiating leverage, Washington national security elites have not reckoned with the stances they took earlier in the war. After experiencing what former State Department official-turned-commentator Tommy Vietor called a “strangely vicious controversy,” former proponents of diplomacy are now steering clear of the topic.

Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., one of the CPC members who signed the initial 2022 letter, disavowed it in October of that year.

“Timing in diplomacy is everything. I signed this letter on June 30, but a lot has changed since then. I wouldn’t sign it today,” Jacobs wrote on X. “We have to continue supporting Ukraine economically and militarily to give them the leverage they need to end this war.”

Today, asked if Jacobs stands by her decision to withdraw support for the letter, her office replied, “Decisions about if and when to negotiate an end to this war are up to Ukraine. I have and will continue to support Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.”

For some experts, there was a missed opportunity to stand firm behind the letter.

“We always say that it’s for the Ukrainians to decide, but really we make Ukrainian decisions possible by our support.”

“That was the moment to just sort of say, ‘OK, let’s split the baby here, and you’re going to be able to get this, and we’re going to be able to walk away and not have our infrastructure destroyed,’” said Keith Darden, a comparative politics professor at American University and Russia–Ukraine expert. “If you think about the destruction that’s been visited on Ukraine, both just sheer death toll and in the destruction of the power grid and infrastructure since that time, the fall of 2022, it’s just really tragic that there wasn’t more of a push made then.”

The negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow in the early weeks of the Russian invasion — which were held predominantly in Turkey — were another chance to end the war, Darden said. In April 2022, Russia and Ukraine had agreed on the outlines of a tentative agreement to halt the conflict. The U.S. and U.K. governments, however, worked to sabotage the deal and prolong the war, according to multiple reports.

By May 2022, Ukrainska Pravda, a pro-Western Ukrainian outlet, reported that former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the West would not support a peace deal even if Ukraine was ready to sign one. The West, Johnson said, preferred to fight Putin because he was less powerful than they thought.

“We always say that it’s for the Ukrainians to decide, but really we make Ukrainian decisions possible by our support,” Darden said. “Without our support, Ukrainians wouldn’t be in a position to make decisions — these things would be forced on them by Russian victory.”

The post Progressives Were Pilloried for Wanting to End the Ukraine War in 2022. Things Have Only Gotten Worse. appeared first on The Intercept.

Ivanti fixed a maximum severity flaw in its Endpoint Management software (EPM) that can let attackers achieve remote code execution on the core server

Ivanti Endpoint Management (EPM) software is a comprehensive solution designed to help organizations manage and secure their endpoint devices across various platforms, including Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, and IoT systems.

The software firm released security updates to address a maximum security vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-29847, in its Endpoint Management software (EPM).

The vulnerability is a deserialization of untrusted data issue that resides in the agent portal, attackers can exploit the flaw to achieve remote code execution on the core server.

“Deserialization of untrusted data in the agent portal of Ivanti EPM before 2022 SU6, or the 2024 September update allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution.” reads the advisory published by the company.

Ivanti also fixed multiple critical, medium and high-severity vulnerabilities that can be exploited to achieve unauthorized access to the EPM core server. 

Critical SQL injection vulnerabilities CVE-2024-32840, CVE-2024-32842, CVE-2024-32843, CVE-2024-32845, CVE-2024-32846, CVE-2024-32848, CVE-2024-34779, CVE-2024-34783, CVE-2024-34785 (CVSS scores of 9.1) could allow a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to execute arbitrary code on the core server.

The flaws impact Ivanti Endpoint Manager  versions 2024 and 2022 SU5 and earlier, the versions 2024 with Security Patch,  (Need to apply both July and September)2024 SU1 (To be released) and 2022 SU6 fixed the problems

The company is not aware of attacks in the wild exploiting the vulnerabilities in the advisory.

“We are not aware of any customers being exploited by these vulnerabilities at the time of disclosure.” concludes the advisory.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, SQL injection) 

On the presidential debate stage Tuesday, former President Donald Trump spewed reliably racist and lie-riddled diatribes about towns being taken over by “millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, for her part, didn’t bother to counter the sentiment, the central ideological violence at the heart of Trump’s message. Harris, albeit in the predictably moderated tones of a Democratic border authoritarian, upheld the right-wing lie that immigration — the migration of poor people, that is — should be stopped.

Both candidates purported to offer diametrically opposed visions for the country’s future. When it came to immigration and the U.S. border, however, only one narrative was available throughout the night: Immigration is a social ill, if not a criminal endeavor, to be deterred as much as possible.

Harris upheld the right-wing lie that immigration — the migration of poor people, that is — should be stopped.

David Muir, the ABC news anchor and debate moderator, set the bleak, hyper-nationalist tone. He opened the discussion on immigration with a lengthy question posed to Harris.

“We know that illegal border crossings reached a record high in the Biden administration,” he said, noting that, since President Joe Biden “imposed tough asylum restrictions” last June, the numbers are down.

“Why did the administration wait until six months before the election to act?” he asked Harris. “And would you have done anything differently from President Biden on this?”

This narrative of a “border crisis” was taken for granted from the jump — specifically, that it is a “crisis” for the U.S., not the desperate people who have fled their homes and must face brutal, unforgiving barriers to seek refuge here. Harris answered Muir accordingly, treating migration as a problem of criminality to be policed and fought.

“I’m the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs, and human beings,” she said. “The United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported.” The bill, she noted, “would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border” and “allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl.”

The border bill in question was indeed one of the most draconian in recent memory. Harris’s only problem with the legislation, she said on Tuesday, was that Trump had allies in Congress kill it. Meanwhile, Biden’s executive order, cited approvingly by Muir, lowered crossing numbers because it effectively shuttered the southern border, even to asylum-seekers — an affront to international humanitarian law and, more to the point, an echo of Trump’s ban on asylum.

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The only characters in current migration narratives mentioned by the cable news host and the Democratic nominee were gang members, traffickers, fentanyl pushers, and “illegal” border crossers. Obscured totally from view: the hundreds of thousands of people risking their lives to cross the border to find safety and better lives in the wealthiest nation on Earth — a nation that bears significant historic responsibility for much of the political turmoil that has driven millions of people to flee violence, repression, economic devastation, and climate catastrophe in Northern Triangle countries, Haiti, and elsewhere in the first place.

Even typical liberal shibboleths about our “nation of immigrants” were absent on Tuesday night. So, too, was any reckoning with the deadly consequences of hardened border policy. As many as 80,000 people have reportedly died trying to cross into the U.S. through the Southern border in the last decade.

The reality in which a Democratic candidate would advocate for opening borders is, of course, a distant cry from our current cruel and nationalist political quagmire. Harris, the centrist Democratic candidate, does not even mention the economic and social interests served by welcoming migrant workers into the U.S., as the existing population ages and the need for workers, particularly in the care sector, only grows.

From an electoral point of view, too, centrists bending rightward — appealing to white resentment — has in the last decade only served to strengthen far-right leaders and parties, from Italy to France to Germany.

Immigrants, of course, should be welcomed as a point of ethical and humanitarian necessity — of global justice — not only in service of the U.S. economy or electoral maneuvering. As Tuesday’s debate made clear, however, that when it comes to border politics, inhumanity is a point of bipartisan agreement.

Border Rule Race to the Bottom

This race to the bottom on “law and order” border rule is not new. As I’ve previously noted, the Biden–Harris administration is not simply borrowing Republican talking points to appeal to disaffected conservatives. Harsh border policies have been the standard of Democratic administrations for three decades, dating back at least to Bill Clinton’s tenure in the White House.

Clinton’s 1996 immigration laws significantly expanded the United States’ ability to detain and deport migrants with even minor criminal convictions. President Barak Obama relied, like Harris since, on the racist, classist narrative of only targeting “criminal” migrants and deported some 3 million people — earning the moniker “deporter in chief.”

Biden’s administration followed suit, shuttering the border this year; introducing a policy in early 2023 to immediately eject asylum-seekers from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua who cross the border without having previously applied for asylum in a third country; and overseeing the increased use of solitary confinement for thousands of detained migrants.

While Democrats will participate in this bigoted race to the bottom, it should not be lost on us that Republicans — especially Trump and his allies — will always win. Harris’s grim picture of gangs and trafficking was met by Trump’s obscene, unfounded repetition of the lie that immigrants from Haiti are stealing and eating people’s pets.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said, parroting a lie posted by vice presidential candidate JD Vance and other right-wing online grifters like Elon Musk about immigrants in Ohio. On the debate stage, Trump grew ever more outlandish: “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

The racist myth sits within a legacy of vile slander faced by Haitians in the West, ever since Haitians liberated themselves from the yoke of French colonialism in the world’s most renown successful revolt by enslaved people. Trump and his followers need not know the specific history of racist backlash to play into its violent afterlives.

Muir, the host, did note — in one of only a few mealy-mouthed fact checks — that, no, there were no credible reports of any such incident in Springfield. Yet when the stage is set to treat Black and other migrants of color as de facto criminals, neither Muir nor Harris, nor anyone involved in Tuesday’s performance — or in this entire election — is a bulwark to the dehumanization to which immigrants are subjected.

The rhetoric around the “border crisis,” from the far right to the liberal center, suggests that the pressure of global migration is bearing down on the U.S. This is hardly the case.

The overwhelming majority of displaced people in the world are internally displaced or in refugee camps near their countries of origin. By comparison to the United States’ so-called crisis, around 1.5 million Syrian refugees currently reside in Lebanon, where the total population is only 5.5 million.

I’m not suggesting that, even for a global superpower, it does not take resources and work to settle millions of newcomers into a country, but these are questions of resource distribution priorities. Since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, the federal government has spent an estimated $409 billion on immigration enforcement agencies alone, and tens of billions more on deterrence strategies like barriers and walls.

Prioritizing the economic security of our collective lives, and the lives of those who enter the country, rather than “securing the border” through militarized violence, would see such sums better spent.

Correction: September 11, 2024, 11:57 a.m. ET
An earlier version of this article misstated the given name of ABC news anchor and moderator David Muir.

The post Kamala Harris Accepted Trump’s Racist Lie That Immigration Is Bad appeared first on The Intercept.