One year afterWikiLeaks began publishingemails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta that exposedprominent journalists as partisans, many of those journalists are continuing their careers without, it seems, any serious consequences.

Take Glenn Thrush, for example. Thrush, now with the New York Times, was exposed sending storiesto the Clinton campaign for approval while at Politico.

Glenn Thrush, chief White House political correspondent for the The New York Times, works in the briefing room after being excluded from an off camera gaggle meeting at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 24, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to [you], he wrote in an April 30, 2015 email to Podesta, including five paragraphs froma storylater titled Hillarys big money dilemma.

Please dont share or tell anyone I did this, Thrushadded. Tell me if I fucked up anything.

No problems here, Podesta replied.

Glenn Thrush sends a story to the Clinton campaign for approval (Screenshot/WikiLeaks)

On April 17, 2015, Thrushsent an emailto Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri with the subject line: pls read asap the [Jennifer Palmieri] bits dont share.

Palmieri forwarded Thrushs email to other Clinton campaign staffers, writing: He did me courtesy of sending what he is going to say about me. Seems fine.

Thrushs career doesnt appear to have been harmed by the fact that he sent stories to Clinton staffers for approval. If anything, his career trajectory has continued upward: Thrush joined the New York Times in December as a White House correspondent.

While covering the Trump administrationfor the NYT, Thrush has oftenco-authoredstories with fellow White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, whom an internal Clinton campaign memo described as a friendly journalist. The memo added: We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed.

The leaked DNC emails also revealed CNBC editor at large John Harwood as clearly biased against Republicans especially Trump.

Harwood repeatedly displayed clear partisanship while emailing with Podesta. In one May 2015 email, for example, Harwood warned Podesta towatch out for Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson.

Ben Carson could give you real trouble in a general, Harwood wrote, including relevantvideo clips of Carson on topics including gay marriage.

In December 2015, Harwood claimed vindication at the Republican party veering off the rails. In the same email, Harwood bragged to Podesta about provoking Trump during a Republican primary debate that Harwood moderated as an ostensibly neutral journalist.

Harwood titled the email, I imagine before continuing in the body: that Obama feels some (sad) vindication at this demonstration of his years-long point about the opposition party veering off the rails.

I certainly am feeling that way with respect to how I questioned Trump at our debate.

John Harwood emails John Podesta about Republicans veering off the rails and brags about provoking Trump. (Screenshot/WikiLeaks)

Harwood wasreferring to the October 2015 debate he moderated, where he asked Trump if he was running a comic book version of a presidential campaign.

Harwood has played a central role in his networks coverage of the first six months of the Trump White House.

Harwood has like much of the news media covered the Russia probe with bombastic language, comparing it to theWatergate scandalthat led to Richard Nixons resignation.

In a story last week, Harwood lay the blame forRepublicans health care struggles at Trumps feet.

New York Times Magazines chief political correspondent, Mark Leibovich, gave the Clinton campaign veto power over what parts of an interview he could and couldnt use, WikiLeaks revealed. (Internal campaign communications described him as sympathetic.)

Leibovich emailed Jennifer Palmieri, the campaigns communications director, following a July 7, 2015 interview with Hillary Clinton. Leibovich told Palmieri she couldveto what you didnt want, includingparts of the interview that he wanted to use.

Palmieri instructed Leibovich to remove a joke Clinton made about Sarah Palin, as well as Clinton saying thatgay rights has moved much faster than womens rights or civil rights, which is an interesting phenomenon somebody in the future will unpack.

Leibovich complied: neither the Palin joke nor Clintons gay rights line were included in his July 15 feature titled, Re-Re-Re-Reintroducing Hillary Clinton.

Leibovich noted in the piece that Clintons campaign at first declined to make her available for an interview. He did not note that he gave the campaign veto power over what parts of the interview he could use.

Leibovich is still writing long-form pieces for NYT Magazine, which are often met with effusive praised fromother journalists on Twitter.

His most recent piece, a July 11 feature titled, This Town Melts Down, explored what has and hasnt changed about D.C. politics in the age of Trump. One thing that apparently hasnt: the prominence of known partisans in the media.

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One Year Later, Journalists Exposed By WikiLeaks Carry On As Before - The Daily Caller

WikiLeaks has released five documents that private defense contractorRaytheon Blackbird Technologies provided to the CIA towards building the UMBRAGE Component Library (UCL). According to WikiLeaks, Raytheon acted as a technology scout for the CIA, exploring the malware in the wild, and recommending promising malware to CIA development teams for use in their own tools.

The documents, a part of the Vault 7 series of releases contains five reports. The first is a keylogger by the Emissary Panda, a threat actor believed to be based in China. The actual tool was not that sophisticated, it managed to persist on the system but used plain text to communicate with the command and control servers. The second is also a remote access tool by Samurai Panda, another group believed to be operating from China. The tool was a variant of an Adobe Flash exploit used by the Italian group, Hacking Team.

The next document outlines the capabilities of a fairly sophisticated malware known as Regin. Regin has a six stage architecture, and is modular, allowing for the malware to be customised for a particular target or operation. Themalware is customised using the modular payloads for specific purposes, including file system access, networking capabilities, compression operations, port blocking, packet filtering and so on.

Another document describes the Gamker Trojan, used for stealing information. Apparently the Trojan uses unusual instructions in assembly language, to obfuscate the code.

The most sophisticated malware described in this set of releases is HammerToss, which is suspected to be a Russian state sponsored malware. The malware uses Twitter accounts, GitHub or compromised websites, and cloud storage to arrange the command and control operations for the malware. There is a five stage architecture for the malware. The malware contains an algorithm that generates Twitter handles on a daily basis, that requires the malware to check the Twitter handles for receiving further instructions.

The instructions are hidden in a URL Tweeted out by the handles, and the accompanying hashtag provides the information needed to decode the instructions. The malware then downloads the data, and uses the hashtag in the tweet to figure out the instructions. The malware then executes the instructions on the target machine. If data has to be retrieved, it is stored in the cloud, from where it is later retrieved by the operators of the malware.

Incorporating malware already in the wild into their own tools can mask the origin of the malware, allowing the CIA to disguise the source of the malware from forensic investigation teams. Unlike many other releases that are part of the Vault 7 disclosures, the tools revealed in the Raytheon set of leaks are not developed by the CIA itself. These tools are developed by other threat actors, that have been identified as malware of interest, parts of which could be used by the CIA.

Read more here:
WikiLeaks releases documents provided to the CIA by Raytheon for developing malware - Firstpost

Washington Times

WikiLeaks wants to 'take down America any way they can,' says CIA chief Washington Times WikiLeaks will take down America any way they can and find any willing partner to achieve that end, Mr. Pompeosaid Thursday at a security summit in Aspen, Colorado, where questions concerning the website's publications and the Trump administration's ... CIA Director Pompeo's views on Wikileaks have apparently evolvedMSNBC CIA director: 'I don't love' WikileaksThe Hill Putin & Trump could have met many times at G20, gone to toilet together LavrovRT The Guardian all 286 news articles »

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WikiLeaks wants to 'take down America any way they can,' says CIA chief - Washington Times

Newsweek has settled a libel complaint with a former Sputnik writer that included allegations of Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald using bribery and threats to buy the editor's silence over a false story regarding Russia, President Trump and WikiLeaks that was later deleted.

Sputnik writer Bill Moran had written a piece that included a misattributed quote that Trump, then a presidential candidate, used in a speech that same day.

Upon realizing a mistake had been made, Moran took the story down, but not before Trump had read it and mentioned it at a rally in Pennsylvania.

But Eichenwald, a senior writer at Newsweek, had concluded the only way Trump could have learned about the "misattributed quote was purposeful collusion with the Russians, and that the Wikileaks documents themselves had been altered," according to Paste.

The 56-year-old Eichenwald, also an MSNBC contributor, offered "to either help [Moran] get a job at New Republic, in seeming exchange for silence, or update the piece with a paragraph naming him. This latter option came with a warning that aligning himself with Sputnik made him unhirable," according to Paste.

Eichenwald has since erased his employment at Newsweek from his Twitter bio. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange noted the deletion in a tweet on Sunday.

Has Newsweek fired its "senior writer" @KurtEichenwald after libel complaint? Bio changed to remove 'Newsweek' https://t.co/jP6ZEcRe1r pic.twitter.com/H2QF26JoIb

The Hill has reached out to Newsweek for comment.

The lawsuit was settled amicably and to my satisfaction, Moran said. After the settlement, the stories were removed, the parties agreed not to speak about the terms of the settlement, so I cant talk to you about what the settlement entails.

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Newsweek settles with Sputnik writer - The Hill

CIA Director Pompeo changes stance on WikiLeaks.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo continued to expressed disdain for WikiLeaks a day after the organization published more Vault7 documents from CIA contractorRaytheon Blackbird Technologiesfor the "UMBRAGEComponent Library" (UCL) project.

Raytheon Blackbird Technologiesreportedly analyzed malware attacks in the wild for the CIA acting as a technology scout for the Remote Development Branch (RDB)of the agency.

The documents mostly contained proof of conceptideas and assessments for malware attack vectors - partly based on public documents from security researchers and private enterprises in the computer security field, according to the July 19 leak.

Some of the linked documents contained information purportedly concerning Symantec, FireEye, Malwarebytes, McAfee, and Rombertik. The documents also cover tools produced the Hacking Team as well as the Russian HammerToss malware and other surveillance themed files.

"WikiLeaks will take down America any way they can," Pompeo said in a conversation with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens.

When questioned on President Trump's comments stating I love WikiLeaks during the campaign when he praised the organization for releasing condemning information about his then opponent, Pompeo expressed a different opinion. I don't love WikiLeaks, Pompeo said.

In June 2016 when Pompeo was still a Republican House lawmaker, he tweeted a link to documents obtained by WikiLeaks from the Democratic National Committee.

Pompeo has since taken a stronger stance against the organization since he was sworn into his most recent role and said he never viewed WikiLeaks as a "credible source of information" when questioned during his confirmation hearing and earlier this year referring to them as a as a "hostile intelligence service."

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CIA Director Pompeo says WikiLeaks will 'take down America' - SC Magazine

MSNBC

CIA Director Pompeo's views on Wikileaks have apparently evolved MSNBC A few months ago, in his first public remarks after becoming the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo expressed contempt for Wikileaks, calling the website a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. Yesterday, The ... WikiLeaks wants to 'take down America any way they can,' says CIA chiefWashington Times CIA director: 'I don't love' WikileaksThe Hill CIA Director Mike Pompeo: 'WikiLeaks will take down America any way they can'Washington Examiner Press TV -Miami Herald -CBS News all 198 news articles »

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CIA Director Pompeo's views on Wikileaks have apparently evolved - MSNBC

CIA Director Mike Pompeo took a swipe at Wikileakson Thursday, saying he doesn't "love" the anti-secrecy organization.

Pompeo arguedduring aninterview with conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens at theAspen Institutes Security Forum that Wikileaks is intent on harming America.

"WikiLeaks will take down America any way they can," he said.

"I don't love WikiLeaks."

Pompeo was also asked about whether he believes Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

"Of course they did," he said. "And the one before that. And the one before that."

The CIA chiefhas previously come out strongly against WikiLeaks, calling them a non-state hostile intelligence service" in an April speech in his first public speech since joining President Trumps administration.

"It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: A non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia, he said.

But both Trump and Pompeo praised WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign, with Trump once declaringon the campaign trail, I love WikiLeaks.

Pompeo also once used his congressional Twitter account to tweet a link to WikiLeaks posting of thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. CNNfound several other instances in which Pompeo cited WikiLeaks to attack then-Democratic nominee Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonFormer Justice Dept spokesman: Trump looks 'super guilty' Maxine Waters is joking about 2020 but not about Trump How Florida explains our polarized politics MORE.

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CIA director: 'I don't love' Wikileaks - The Hill

Some four months after the first Vault 7 leak, WikiLeaks continues to publish revealing CIA documents that detail the agency's ability to hack, infiltrate and surveil targets. The latest batch goes under the banner "UCL / Raytheon", and comprises documents from CIA contractor Raytheon Blackbird Technologies.

Dating from late 2014 and late 2015, the documents show how the CIA, through Raytheon Blackbird Technologies, monitored malware in the wild to see how it could be used by the agency. The documents cover tools produced by the infamous Hacking Team as well as the Russian HammerToss malware delivered via Twitter.

See also:

In all, the latest batch of releases include five documents from Raytheon Blackbird Technologies. The first looks at the HTTPBrowser remote access tool (RAT) developed by the Chinese group Emissary Panda, while another concerns the Hacking Team-inspired RAT IsSpace based on NfLog and used by Samurai Panda.

Also discussed are Regin -- a data collecting malware subtitled Stealthy Surveillance -- and the Gamker Trojan. Particularly interesting, however, is the Russian-produced HammerToss which "leverages Twitter accounts, GitHub or compromised websites, basic steganography, and Cloud-storage to orchestrate command and control (C2) functions of the attack."

Revealing the latest leaks, WikiLeaks says:

Today WikiLeaks publishes documents from the CIA contractor Raytheon Blackbird Technologies for the "UMBRAGE Component Library" (UCL) project. The documents were submitted to the CIA between November 21st 2014 (just two weeks after Raytheon acquired Blackbird Technologies to build a Cyber Powerhouse) and September, 11th 2015. They mostly contain Proof-of-Concept ideas and assessments for malware attack vectors - partly based on public documents from security researchers and private enterprises in the computer security field.

Raytheon Blackbird Technologies acted as a kind of "technology scout" for the Remote Development Branch (RDB) of the CIA by analysing malware attacks in the wild and giving recommendations to the CIA development teams for further investigation and PoC development for their own malware projects.

You can check out the UCL / Raytheon documents over on the WikiLeaks website.

Read more:
WikiLeaks: CIA analyzed Russian and Chinese malware to inspire its own hacking and surveillance tools - BetaNews

Short Bytes: As a part of the ongoing CIA Vault 7 series, WikiLeaks has published some new documents. The leaks share details regarding CIAs partnership withRaytheon Blackbird Technologies, which helped CIA with insights into the malware development. The documents also briefly describe 5 CIA-Raytheon malware and their attack vectors.

The leaked documents were submitted to the CIA between 21st Nov2014 and 11th Sep2015. The documents submitted by Raytheon contained proof-of-concept assessments for malware attack vectors.

It should be noted thatRaytheon acted as a technology scout for CIAs Remote Development Branch (RDB). The scout made recommendations to the CIA teams for further research and malware development.

So, without further delay, lets tell you about the 5 CIA-Raytheon malware described in the leaked documents:

The first document gives an introduction to a new variant of the HTTPBrowserRemote Access Tool (RAT). The malwares dropper has a zip file that contains3 files. This RAT captures keystrokes and writes it to a file. It continuously talks to the C&C (command and control) server in clear text communications.

NfLogRAT is also known as IsSpace. This new malware variant is deployed using the leaked Hacking Team Adobe Flash exploit which uses CVE 2015-5122. For C&C communications, NfLog also uses the Google App Engine. By using UAC bypass technique, it attempts UAC bypass and privilege escalation on Windows operating system.

Reign is a sophisticated malware sample that has been in use as early as 2008, with its new iteration appearing in 2013. What makes Reign special is its modular architecture that grants flexibility to the attackers. It also features the capability to hide itself from detection. The attack via Reign is carried out in 5 stages, with the last granting functionalities like file system access, networking, event logging, port loading, rootkit functions, etc.

HammerToss is probably a Russian-sponsored malware. It leverages compromised websites, GitHub, Twitter accounts, and cloud storage for taking care of theC&C functions. Written in C#, HammerToss uses a dedicated program to create new Twitter accounts and use them to execute commands and get the data uploaded by the victim.

Gamker is an information stealing Trojan that uses the process of self-code injection to make sure that nothing is written to disk. Gamker is also able to gain someobfuscation characteristics by using Assembly language instruction in hooking routine.

Have something to add to this story? Dont forget to share your views with us.

Source: WikiLeaks

Read our complete WikiLeaksVault 7 coverage here.

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5 New CIA Malware Unveiled By WikiLeaks HTTPBrowser, NfLog, Regin, HammerLoss, Gamker - Fossbytes

ASPEN, Colo. -- CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Thursday Russia has no plans to leave Syria and will continue to try to meddle in U.S. affairs to "stick it to America."

He reiterated his belief that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election and described the U.S.-Russia relationship as "complicated."

"I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think they find that's something that's useful," he said

Pompeo also said he has seen only minimal evidence that Russia has pursued a serious strategy against Islamic State of Iraq and Syrica (ISIS) militants in Syria. He said any suggestion that Russia has been a U.S. ally in Syria is not borne out by what's happening on the ground.

But Pompeo said he was hopeful there will be places in the world where the U.S. and Russia can cooperate on counterterrorism.

He said it's difficult to imagine a stable Syria with President Bashar Assad still in power. He called Assad a "puppet of the Iranians," who now have a "significant foothold in Syria."

Russia will stay in Syria, he said, because it loves its naval port in Tartus, off the Mediterranean Sea.

The CIA director spoke in a wide-ranging conversation at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual gathering of intelligence and national security officials and experts in Aspen, Colorado.

He said the Trump administration is working on ways to push back against Iran, which wants to be a "kingpin" in the Middle East.

Pompeo continued his criticism of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. The Trump administration recently confirmed that Iran had met its obligations under the deal but warned it would face consequences for breaching "the spirit" of the accord - a reference to Iran's continued pursued of a ballistic missile program.

When it comes to Iranian compliance with the agreement, Iran is a "bad tenant," Pompeo said. He likened their compliance with a renter who doesn't pay rent until the landlord demands it and then sends a bad check. He noted that President Trump has been working with Gulf states and Israel to find a common way to push back against Iranian aggression in the region.

What won't work is appeasing Tehran or forcing them into compliance, he said.

"When we have our strategy in place, I'm confident you will see a fundamental shift in policy" toward Iran, Pompeo said.

Pompeo also addressed the threat from North Korea and said Mr. Trump asks questions about Pyongyang nearly every time he sees him.

"It is at the front of his mind," Pompeo said.

It's one thing for Pyongyang to have a missile that can harm the United States and another for it to have an arsenal of such weapons, he said, adding that things can be done to narrow its capacity to develop a stockpile.

While some people believe North Korea's leader is irrational, Pompeo said he is convinced Kim Jong Un understands his core mission - "which is to keep himself in power."

While he avoided saying the U.S. might favor a regime change, Pompeo said he's "hopeful that we will find a way to separate that regime" from its nuclear capabilities.

"The North Korea people - I'm sure are lovely people - and would love to see him go as well. You know they don't live a very good life there," Pompeo said.

On another issue, Pompeo said he believes WikiLeaks will "take down America any way it can." He noted that the anti-secrecy group's website urges students to become CIA interns so they can become whistleblowers.

Pompeo acknowledged that Donald Trump said during the presidential campaign that he loved WikiLeaks.

"I don't love WikiLeaks," Pompeo said.

Besides Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked documents revealing extensive U.S. government surveillance, WikiLeaks has released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers. WikiLeaks previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.

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CIA chief Mike Pompeo: Russia loves to stick it to America - CBS News