Syria has received first shipment of S-300 missiles according to Lebanese media

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Assad says Syria received Russian missile shipment - Lebanese media

Syria has received the first shipment of a sophisticated air defence system from Russia, President Bashar al-Assad was quoted as saying, sending a signal of military strength days before an EU arms embargo on the country lapses.

Russia had promised delivery of the S-300 missile system to the Syrian government despite Western objections, saying the move would help stabilise the regional balance at a time of insurgency in Syria waged by Western-backed rebels.

Moscow is a staunch ally of Assad and it has appeared to grow more defiant since the European Union let its arms embargo on Syria expire as of June 1, opening up the possibility of the West arming the Syrian rebels.


"Syria has received the first shipment of Russian anti-aircraft S-300 rockets," Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar newspaper quoted Assad as saying in an interview due to be broadcast later on Thursday.
More of the missiles would arrive soon, he was quoted as saying.

A source close to Russia's Defence Ministry said there had been a "bank transfer" in connection with the S-300 transaction but that Russian banks were becoming increasingly nervous about dealing with Assad.

"There were some problems with payments because big Russian banks were scared of dealing with Assad, but there was a bank transfer," the source said. "There are also not big banks and banks that are not based in Moscow. Beyond the down payment there was almost certainly a second payment, maybe a third."

Last year, a source close to Russia's weapons export monopoly Rosoboronexport said Syria had paid 20 percent of the contract price, but that the S-300 deal was frozen because of the country's civil war.

The United States, France and Israel have all called on Russia to stop the missile delivery.

More than 80,000 people have been killed in Syria since peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule morphed into a civil war, pitting the president's forces and his ally, Hezbollah, against Syrian rebels and a flow of Sunni Islamist militants who have come to help them from abroad.

Moscow says the expiry of the EU embargo complicates U.S. and Russian-led efforts to set up a peace conference between the Syrian government and its opponents, who demand an immediate end to Assad family rule.

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5-year Old Cyber Spying Operation on Governments, Others Uncovered

Well, some cyber spies have been stealing classified information about some governments and prominent individuals from around the world. Details can be read below...

Cybersleuths Uncover 5-Year Spy Operation Targeting Governments, Others

An advanced and well-orchestrated computer spy operation that targeted diplomats, governments and research institutions for at least five years has been uncovered by security researchers in Russia.

The highly targeted campaign, which focuses primarily on victims in Eastern Europe and Central Asia based on existing data, is still live, harvesting documents and data from computers, smartphones and removable storage devices, such as USB sticks, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based antivirus firm that uncovered the campaign. Kaspersky has dubbed the operation “Red October.”

While most of the victims documented are in Eastern Europe or Central Asia, targets have been hit in 69 countries in total, including the U.S., Australia, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Brazil, Spain, South Africa, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. Kaspersky calls the victims “high profile,” but declined to identify them other than to note that they’re government agencies and embassies, institutions involved in nuclear and energy research and companies in the oil and gas and aerospace industries.

“The main purpose of the operation appears to be the gathering of classified information and geopolitical intelligence, although it seems that the information-gathering scope is quite wide,” Kaspersky notes in a report released Monday. “During the past five years, the attackers collected information from hundreds of high-profile victims, although it’s unknown how the information was used.”

The attackers, believed to be native Russian-speakers, have set up an extensive and complex infrastructure consisting of a chain of at least 60 command-and-control servers that Kaspersky says rivals the massive infrastructure used by the nation-state hackers behind the Flame malware that Kaspersky discovered last year.
But the researchers note that the Red October attack has no connection to Flame, Gauss, DuQu or other sophisticated cyberspy operations Kaspersky has examined in recent years.

The attack also shows no signs yet of being the product of a nation-state and may instead be the work of cybercriminals or freelance spies looking to sell valuable intelligence to governments and others on the black market, according to Kaspersky Lab senior security researcher Costin Raiu.

The malware the attackers use is highly modular and customized for each victim, who are assigned a unique ID that is hardcoded into the malware modules they receive.
 
The statistics on countries and industries are based on Kaspersky customers who have been infected with the malware and on victim machines that contacted a Kaspersky sinkhole set up for some of the command-and-control servers.

Source: Wired