Daily Intel Brief
North Korea fires two more ballistic missiles, a former Twitter staffer is jailed for 3.5 years for spying, and the Jalisco drug cartel kidnaps a Mexican colonel...
Counterterrorism
Four Pakistani police officers were killed and another four critically wounded Sunday when suspected militants attacked a police station in the country's volatile northwest, police said. The suspects used grenades and automatic weapons on the station in Lakki Marwat district…
Islamic State group jihadists said Sunday they had carried out an attack in northern Iraq killing nine police officers, setting off a roadside bomb before machine-gunning survivors. The attack in the Kirkuk area -- which police said left nine federal officers dead -- is one…
Military & Defense
North Korea fired a pair of ballistic missiles on Sunday toward its eastern waters, its first weapons test in a month and coming two days after it claimed to have performed a key test needed to build a more mobile, powerful intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike…
The South Korean military has received the first of its new K15 machine guns developed by a domestic defense company. According to a press release from SNT Motiv, it held a ‘K15 machine gun system launching ceremony’ at the Busan headquarters on Dec. 16, 2022…
Cybersecurity
Hackers have been targeting Ukrainian government networks with a new supply chain attack using fake Windows installers. According to a report released by Mandiant on Thursday, threat actors tracked as UNC4166 hosted malicious files disguised as legitimate installers for…
State-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) Charming Kitten (aka TA453), which is purportedly linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has updated its phishing techniques, and is using malware and more confrontational lures, possibly in service to…
Counterintelligence & Espionage
Some wireless devices—phones, tablets, or maybe even smart watches—could soon be welcome inside secure facilities, according to an intel official. “I think it's inevitable, in terms of the incorporation of wireless, into our community, into our facilities,” Douglas Cossa…
A Twitter employee who spied for the Saudi government and royal family has been sentenced to three and half years behind bars in America. Ahmad Abouammo, 45, was in August convicted by a jury of acting as an unlawful foreign agent, and committing conspiracy, wire…
Transnational Organized Crime
The multibillion-dollar international monkey trade exploded because it supplied researchers with laboratory animals as they raced to develop Covid vaccines. In an NBC News investigation, Stephanie Gosk has more details on ethical concerns about the trade and…
The Mexican army said late Friday that the violent Jalisco drug cartel has kidnapped a colonel who commanded a detachment in the gang-dominated northern border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. The kidnapping of Col. José Isidro Grimaldo Muñoz…