DefenceTalkThe Pentagon said Thursday that it was tracking a Chinese spy balloon flying high over the United States that appeared to be surveilling highly sensitive nuclear weapons sites. At President Joe Biden’s request, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and top military officials considered shooting the balloon down but decided doing so would endanger too many people […]https://www.defencetalk.com/pentagon-tracking-chinese-spy-balloon-over-us-79833/

DefenceTalkDefenceTalkFour retired Taiwanese military intelligence officers — including a major general — have been indicted for spying for China, prosecutors said Saturday. The quartet were charged with developing a spying network and collecting confidential information for Beijing, the Taipei district prosecutors’ office said. The two sides have been spying on each other since the Nationalists […]https://www.defencetalk.com/four-taiwan-ex-intelligence-officers-charged-with-spying-for-china-76803/

DefenceTalkDefenceTalkCalifornia WeChat users sued its parent company Tencent on Wednesday, saying the mobile app is used for spying on and censoring users for the Chinese government. US-based nonprofit Citizen Power Initiatives for China (CPIFC) filed the suit in Silicon Valley, joined by a half-dozen California residents in urging a state court to order Tencent to […]https://www.defencetalk.com/california-wechat-users-claim-china-surveillance-in-lawsuit-76684/

DefenceTalkDefenceTalkEspionage in Australia had eclipsed Cold War levels, the country’s spymaster told parliament on Tuesday, in a speech warning that citizens were being monitored and harassed by foreign powers. Several politicians across the ideological spectrum have become embroiled in investigations into suspected overseas influence operations — most notably from China. Australia’s normally tight-lipped spy chiefs […]https://www.defencetalk.com/espionage-in-australia-at-higher-levels-than-cold-war-spy-chief-warns-76484/

Some 1,000 open investigations of Chinese technology theft now involve every FBI office in the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray told guests at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Thursday. “Even as I stand here talking to you today, the FBI has about 1,000 investigations involving China’s attempted theft of US-based […]

DefenceTalkA former US Defense Intelligence Agency official will be jailed for 15 years after pleading guilty Friday to charges of attempting to sell classified information to the Chinese, the Department of Justice said. Ron Rockwell Hansen, 58, a former DIA operative based in Beijing, was arrested in June while preparing to board a flight to […]https://www.defencetalk.com/pentagon-intel-official-pleads-guilty-in-chinese-spying-case-72215/

DefenceTalkBritain’s Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has accused Russia of spying on its critical infrastructure as part of possible plans to create “total chaos” in the country that could “cause thousands and thousands of deaths”. In unusually alarmist words from a senior minister Williamson told the Daily Telegraph that, in its research on UK power supply […]https://www.defencetalk.com/russia-infrastructure-spying-could-cause-total-chaos-uk-71178/

DefenceTalkIf you thought surveillance drones were unnerving, a French-Italian aerospace company is now producing an unmanned blimp to monitor the ground from space. One good thing can be said for government-operated spy UAVs: they have to land occasionally. But Thales Alenia Space, an aerospace manufacturer, is hoping to take the utility of a Predator drone […]https://www.defencetalk.com/stratobus-the-spy-blimp-satellite-of-the-future-used-for-snooping-67516/

DefenceTalkBritain’s defence forces should spend more of their budget on spy planes, drones and covert forces to fight extremist militants, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday. The government last week announced it would meet the minimum defence spending target set by NATO of two percent of gross domestic product for the full five years […]https://www.defencetalk.com/british-military-should-focus-on-drones-spy-tech-cameron-64892/

DefenceTalkA computer worm designed to gather foreign intelligence and widely linked to Israel was used to spy on negotiations with Iran on curtailing its nuclear program, security researchers said Wednesday. A report by the Russian-based security firm Kaspersky Lab said it discovered the malware dubbed Duqu lurking in its own internal networks and linked the […]https://www.defencetalk.com/computer-worm-enabled-spying-on-iran-talks-researchers-64468/