Ser diretor de uma grande Agência de Inteligência não é tarefa fácil. Se é verdade que barco singra o mar à imagem do exemplo de trabalho de seu capitão, a CIA deverá rever muitos aspectos de sua atividade em função do escândalo que envolve a falha pessoal de John Brennan.
Desde o dia 21/10/2015 quando tratamos em postagem a brecha que vitimou o diretor da CIA, muitas repercussões ganharam corpo em coleta OSINT. A CNN apresenta a revolta de John Brennan, em recentes declarações perante conferência na George Washington University:
"...I was certainly outraged by it [...] I certainly was concerned about what people might try to do with that information, [...] I was also dismayed at how some of the media handled it, and the inferences that were in there. [...] Although we are government officials, we also have family and friends, bills to pay, things to do in our daily lives, and the way you communicate these days is through the Internet, [...] The implication of some of the reporting was that I was doing something inappropriate or wrong or a violation of my security responsibilities - which was certainly not the case. [...] What it does is to underscore just how vulnerable people are to those who want to cause harm, [...] We really have to evolve to deal with these new threats and challenges..."
Quanto a primeira parte do argumento, duvido que seus pares desvinculem o escândalo pessoal de sua gestão profissional, embora por mera aparência possivelmente o façam. Pela segunda parte, concordo: é um caso a se estudar quando um suposto adolescente em manobra de engenharia social ganha acesso a uma "esquecida" conta de e-mail pessoal de um diretor da CIA, com informações sensíveis as suas atividades profissionais.
Matéria da Associated Press destaca a relativa sensibilidade dos conteúdos acessados pelo hacker, conforme expresso no vazamento de documentos propalado pelo WikiLeaks, que incluem temas relativos ao Irã e aos métodos de tortura aplicados pela CIA:
"...The WikiLeaks organization posted material Wednesday from what appears to be CIA Director John Brennan’s personal email account, including a draft security clearance application containing personal information. [...] The documents all date from before 2009, when Brennan joined the White House staff; before that, he was working in the private sector. Aside from the partially completed clearance application, none of the documents appears to be sensitive.
The documents include a partially written position paper on the future of intelligence, a memo on Iran, a paper from a Republican lawmaker on CIA interrogations and a summary of a contract dispute between the CIA and Brennan’s private company, the Analysis Corporation, which had filed a formal protest after losing a contract dealing with terrorist watch lists..."
"...A CIA statement called the postings a “crime.” [...] "The Brennan family is the victim,” the agency said in an unattributed statement, in keeping with agency policy. “This attack is something that could happen to anyone and should be condemned, not promoted. There is no indication that any the documents released thus far are classified. In fact, they appear to be documents that a private citizen with national security interests and expertise would be expected to possess..."
Embora os esforços para diminuir a dimensão do escândalo sejam louváveis, é patente que há vários assuntos sensíveis que foram desvelados. A NDTV da Índia destaca a visão de Brennan em documento destinado a Obama sobre a interação entre terroristas afegãos, o governo Paquistanês e seu conflito com a Índia:
"...Pakistan uses terrorists as proxies to counter India's growing influence in Afghanistan, according to a set of documents released by WikiLeaks from the hacked personal email account of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, John Brennan. The documents, released by the whistle-blower website and deemed classified by the CIA, contained reports on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and also ideas for US policy towards Iran.
Three days after Barack Obama was elected US President in November 2008, Mr Brennan wrote to him in a position-cum- strategy paper that Pakistan uses the Taliban to counter India in Afghanistan. "Pakistan's desire to counter India's growing influence in Afghanistan and concerns about US long-term commitments to Afghanistan increase Pakistan's interest in hedging its bets by ensuring that it will be able to have a working relationship with the Taliban to balance Indian and Iranian interests if the US withdraws," Mr Brennan wrote on November 7 in 2008.
At that time, Mr Brennan was a top foreign policy and counter-terrorism adviser to Mr Obama, then a president-elect. Mr Brennan was in the running to be CIA Director, but the post, however, went to Leon Panetta. In January 2013, President Obama nominated Mr Brennan as CIA Director. His views on Pakistan were disclosed in a 13-page executive summary of key findings and recommendations on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mr Brennan, in the summary, said efforts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have been challenged by Pakistan's ambivalence and perhaps outright support for, the Taliban. "While the US Intelligence Community differs on the extent of the relationships, at least some elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence services appear to be ambivalent about the anti-Taliban and anti-militant mission in the FATA, in part due to their history of close ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan's conflict with the Soviet Union and Pakistan's use of militant proxies in its conflict with India," he wrote.
Coalition forces have won every major battle with Afghan insurgents, but these tactical successes have not resulted in a strategic victory, largely because insurgents are free to regroup in sanctuaries across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, he wrote. On Wednesday, WikiLeaks began publishing documents from "Brennan's non-government email accounts". They appear to date back to 2007-09, when Mr Brennan worked in the private sector..."
Aposto que Putin deve ter rolado no chão de tanto rir. A agência Sputnik apresenta uma série de matérias explorando os documentos vazados do e-mail de Brennan. Fato é que a imagem da CIA restará mais uma vez ridicularizada em função da falha pessoal de um de seus principais atores.
A lição do crescente escândalo envolvendo Brennan e o "Cracka" é simples e fatal: ninguém jamais estará imune as preparações básicas de contrainteligência. Estivessem tais documentos criptografados adequadamente em um canal seguro para sua difusão, o eventual acesso não autorizado ao e-mail pessoal por um golpe de engenharia social seria potencialmente irrelevante.
Fontes:
http://soldadodosilencio.blogspot.com/2015/10/hacker-adolescente-teria-invadido-email.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/27/politics/john-brennan-email-hack-outrage/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wikileaks-publishes-cia-director-john-brennan-emails/2015/10/21/5e37c758-782c-11e5-a5e2-40d6b2ad18dd_story.html
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/pak-used-taliban-to-counter-india-in-afghanistan-cia-chiefs-hacked-emails-1236355
http://sputniknews.com/us/20151022/1028905336/CIA-Operated-Within-US.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3286700/Hacker-Cracka-got-CIA-Director-John-Brennan-s-AOL-account-believes-caught.html
