What do intelligence officials need to do now to protect themselves in the aftermath of the cyber-attack on Ukraine? Brandon Van Grack’s perspective

To recap: A small number of secret military documents were found on Twitter and Telegram on Wednesday, and researchers and social media sleuths have since discovered more on other sites — some posted as early as March 1.

The impact of the new material on the war is not yet known, as Ukraine prepares to launch a counteroffensive in the spring.

Brandon Van Grack is a former Justice Department “leak czar” and he said that national security damage has been done.

He says the only debate now is “how much damage there was and what the threat is still live.” We do not know if there are more leaks or if someone still has access to classified information, this should be the priority right now.

The leads the investigation into Edward Snowden after thousands of documents were leaked from the National Security Agency. Van Grack is now a partner at Morrison & Foerster, which represents Discord — one of the sites where the Ukraine documents were shared.

He spoke with Morning Edition’s A Martínez on Monday about what could be happening behind the scenes as law enforcement and intelligence officials work together to try to plug the leak and remediate the damage.

The FBI along with the DOJ is identifying what third parties, what companies may have relevant information, and issuing search warrants and subpoenas and that’s probably what’s been occurring through the weekend. The intelligence committee in coordination with the FBI is looking at leaked documents to see whether or not they have any identifying features.

There are many places that you can get evidence from, like the FBI, DOJ, and the companies and individuals who may have posted it. At the same time, you are closely coordinating with the intelligence community. There are multiple documents, there are images in them, and you may be trying to narrow the group of people that may have had access to them.

At the same time, you’re chewing gum. Right now the focus needs to be, and is, identifying who this person or these persons are, period. That is the priority. You’re starting to put together a charging document once they figure out, for example, that someone is the person you’re looking for. But right now the priority has to be the identification and ensuring that there are no further leaks coming.

We know there should be some overlap of the individuals and expertise made up of the special counsel appointments. And so certainly there’s at least some subset of those persons who have been sprinting for the last few months on those cases and now would probably need to do some sort of pivot to focus on this for the time being.

This case shows why it is so critical that we enforce criminally the laws that make it unlawful to willfully retain or disclose classified information. Millions of Americans have access to classified information, but they can’t all be monitored. It’s important to make sure that access is controlled, and that it’s not revealed to people who don’t have access.

The Pentagon has stood up an intelligence-gathering effort to assess the impact of the leak but US officials and allies are concerned that the revelations could compromise important foreign relationships.

But, to date, little is known about who may have been responsible for the leak or how some of the nation’s most tightly guarded secrets ended up on social media sites.

The Defense Department is still reviewing the matter and has taken steps to tighten the flow of such highly sensitive documents, officials said, which are normally available on any given day to hundreds of people across the government.

Congressional lawmakers have expressed concern about the apparent scope of the leak and its sensitivity but they largely remain in the dark about what happened.

Both House and Senate Intelligence Committee leaders are demanding answers from the Biden administration. House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Mike Turner is scheduled to receive a briefing on Monday and his Senate counterparts have jointly requested one as well.

Detection of US spying on South Korea, Israel and Ukraine through photos of documents folded up and shoved into a pocket: a case study in South Korea

The posts are photos of crumpled documents laid on top of magazines and surrounded by other random objects, such as zip-close bags and Gorilla Glue. It is as if they had been hastily folded up and shoved into a pocket before being removed from a secure location, a source familiar with these kinds of documents told CNN.

Some of the documents, which US officials say are authentic, expose the extent of US eavesdropping on key allies, including South Korea, Israel and Ukraine.

The degree to which the US has penetrated the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian mercenary organization is known by others, who reveal it through intercept communications and human sources.

One document reveals that the US has been spying on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That is unsurprising, said a source close to Zelensky, but Ukrainian officials are deeply frustrated about the leak.

The US intelligence report claims Zelensky suggested using drones to hit Russian deployment locations in southern Russia due to the lack of long-range weapons for that distance.

Signals intelligence includes intercepted communications and is broadly defined by the National Security Agency as “intelligence derived from electronic signals and systems used by foreign targets, such as communications systems, radars, and weapons systems.”

Yet another document describes, in remarkable detail, a conversation between two senior South Korean national security officials about concerns by the country’s National Security Council over a US request for ammunition.

The South Korea policy of not sending lethal aid to war-torn countries is why the officials were worried about the possibility of the US supplying the anti-tank weapon to Ukraine. According to the document, one of the officials then suggested a way of getting around the policy without actually changing it – by selling the ammunition to Poland.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/10/politics/classified-documents-leak-explainer/index.html

What are the documents leaking out about Israel? A US official tells CNN: Russian-Ukrainian battle for the Donbas region likely

An intelligence report about Israel caused outrage in Jerusalem. The report, produced by the CIA and sourced to signals intelligence, says that Israel’s main intelligence agency, the Mossad, had been encouraging protests against the country’s new government – “including several explicit calls to action,” the report alleges.

The US has yet to give a slide show to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom about their efforts to identify the leaker, CNN was told on Monday.

“We expect the US to share a damage assessment with us in the coming days, but we cannot wait for their assessment. The official from the country that is part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement with the US said that they are doing their own right now.

It was alarming to see a document titled ” Russia-Ukrainian: Battle for the Donbas Region Likely”, which was from February. Heading for a Stalemate Throughout 2023.” The document notes the challenges with assessing the “endurance of Ukraine’s operations.”

“Gains for Ukraine will be hard to accomplish, but it does not help to have the private US assessment pointing to a likely yearlong stalemate revealed publicly,” the official said.

Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said on his Telegram channel Friday that he believes the documents that have been disseminated are inauthentic, have “nothing to do with Ukraine’s real plans” and are based on “a large amount of fictitious information” disseminated by Russia.

The US government is engaging with allies and partners at high levels to make sure they know that there is a commitment to security in the wake of the leak.

At the State Department, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has been tapped to lead the diplomatic response, according to a US official familiar with the matter.

One of the diplomats said they expect a briefing from US officials in the coming days and noted that the Easter holiday had slowed the pace of discussions in recent days.

The Joint Staff is examining the distribution lists of those who get the reports, a Defense official said. Many of the documents had markings indicating that they had been produced by the Joint Staff’s intelligence arm, known as J2, and appear to be briefing documents.

Chris Meagher said the Pentagon team working to determine the scale and scope of the leak includes the legislative affairs, policy, general counsel, intelligence and security, and joint staff offices.

Asked if the government has any sense of who leaked the documents, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said Monday that the Department of Defense had referred the case to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation and directed questions to them.