Russians use front-company to access US federal employees’ contact info, says report

March 14, 2019 by Ian Allen

Russian spy agencies use front companies to purchase directorates that contain the contact details of United States government employees, according to a new intelligence report. The contact details are contained in multi-page directories of Congressional staff members and employees of US federal agencies. They are published every January by a specialist vendor called Leadership Connect with the cooperation of a Washington, DC-based provider of publishing services. The directories contain the names, job titles, professional addresses and telephone numbers of US government employees.

But according to the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (EFIS), copies of the directorate are purchased every year by the Russian intelligence services, such as the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). The two Russian spy agencies allegedly use a front company in order to purchase copies of the directory. In reality, however, the purchases are made on behalf of Russian intelligence units, such as Military Unit 71330 of the FSB. This allegation is contained in the 2019 security environment assessment, which was published this week by the EFIS. Titled International Security and Estonia, the report is an overview of the main threats to Estonia’s internal security and a description of how these threats relate to international developments.

The directories, says EFIS, are not classified. On the contrary, they contain information that is publicly available in the US. However, the job descriptions and contact information of US federal employees are difficult to access in a collected format. The directories are therefore useful to Russian intelligence, which routinely tries to access large quantities of open-source information from foreign countries. Russian spy agencies are known to incorporate this open-source information into recruitment or surveillance plans that target specific individuals or foreign government agencies. They also use them to fill gaps in intelligence collection about specific agencies or parts of agencies, according to Robert Dannenberg, a former CIA officer who spoke to Yahoo News about the EFIS report.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 14 March 2019 | Permalink