{"id":142,"date":"2019-04-02T09:53:34","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T07:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/192.168.10.2\/blog\/?p=142"},"modified":"2024-10-11T09:57:32","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T07:57:32","slug":"cyber-gru-ii-historical-sigint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/cyber-gru-ii-historical-sigint\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyber (GRU) (II): historical SIGINT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The GRU, <strong>Military Unit 44388<\/strong>, obtains and processes \nintelligence from multiple disciplines, including IMINT, SATINT and, of \ncourse OSINT, with information needs linked to the military, political, \ntechnological, economic and ecological\/energy fields ([1]). It was \nalready indicated in the article dedicated to the GRU, within the series\n on the Russian Cyberintelligence Community, that the Sixth Directorate \nof the GRU has historically had the SIGINT (COMINT and ELINT) \nattributions  of the Service. An excellent description of these \nattributions can be found in [2]; in the image, the historical structure\n of the GRU:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"714\" height=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/lab52.es\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/structure.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/structure.png 714w, https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/structure-300x190.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 714px) 100vw, 714px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Sixth Directorate, which reports directly to the Service\u2019s Deputy\n Director for Technical Affairs, was divided into four divisions<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>COMINT,coordinating all the COMINT activities of the GRU and its \nTransmission Regiments and also responsible for the interception network\n of the Service.<\/li><li>ELINT, similar to the previous one but for non-COMINT signal intelligence (ELINT and perhaps TELINT).<\/li><li>Technical Support, the branch responsible for the operation and \nmaintenance of the GRU\u2019s interception capabilities around the world, \nfrom those located in embassies or consulates to large stations such as \nLourdes (Cuba).<\/li><li>SIGINT monitoring, operating and reporting to the Service Command \nPost, in 24 \u00d7 7, to monitor the military situation worldwide, especially\n in the USA.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to the structure of the Sixth Directorate, the GRU has \nother capabilities related to signal intelligence, from the Service \nCommand Post to the Spacial Intelligence Department. We could even talk \nabout the theft of cryptographic material via HUMINT, but of all these \nadditional capabilities, the following are especially relevant \u2013 due \ntheir proximity to the cyber environment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Decryption Service, which receives and decrypts communications \nacquired by the GRU worldwide, especially from the Technical Support \nbranch, and which is located in Komsomolskiy Prospekt (Moscow) ([3]). \nContrary to what appears in some publications, this service does not \ndepend on the Sixth Directorate, but is directly subordinated to the \nDirector of the GRU.<\/li><li>Special Processing Center of the GRU (<em>Spetsialniy Tsentr<\/em>), \nwhich, from its headquarters in the outskirts of Moscow, processes the \nenormous volume of communications provided by the Sixth Directorate \nthrough Soviet systems ([4]).<\/li><li><em>Central Scientific Research Institute<\/em>, in Moscow, responsible for the design of SIGINT equipment for the GRU ([5]).<\/li><li>Operational Technical Directorate, of the General Directorate of \nTechnical Affairs, independent from the Sixth Directorate since 1968 and\n which is responsible for research, development and procurement of the \nSIGINT hardware of the GRU.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, and outside the GRU structure but coordinated and supported \nby it, each of the military land or naval areas of the former USSR had \nits own Intelligence Directorate (RU), and at the same time a department\n -the Fifth Department- was established within each of them, responsible\n for radioelectronic recognition. This Fifth Department was in charge of\n analysing the signal intelligence collected by the Transmission \nRegiments and their stations in each of these military zones. \nOperational intelligence was developed in these RU, so its coordination \ndepended on both the Sixth Directorate of the GRU and the Fifth \nDirectorate of the Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>[1] Roland Heicker\u00f6. <em>Emerging Cyber Threats and Russian Views on Information Warfare and Information Operations.<\/em> FOI. Swedish Defence Research Agency. March, 2010.<\/li><li>[2] Desmond Ball. <em>Soviet Signals Intelligence (SIGINT)<\/em>.\nCanberra papers on strategy and defence, no. 47. Strategic and Defense \nStudies Centre. Research School of Pacific Studies. The Australian \nNational University. Canberra, 1989.<\/li><li>[3] Desmond Ball, Robert Windrem. <em>Soviet signals intelligence (Sigint): Organization and management.<\/em>&nbsp;Intelligence and National Security. Volumen 4, Issue 4. 1989.<\/li><li>[4] Karl Maria Michal de Leew, Jan Bergstra (Ed.). <em>The History of Information Security: A Comprehensive Handbook<\/em>. Elsevier. August, 2007.<\/li><li>[5]&nbsp;Jeffrey Carr. <em>Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld.<\/em> <em>2nd edition.<\/em> Ed. O\u2019Reilly, 2011).<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The GRU, Military Unit 44388, obtains and processes intelligence from multiple disciplines, including IMINT, SATINT and, of course OSINT, with information needs linked to the military, political, technological, economic and ecological\/energy fields ([1]). It was already indicated in the article dedicated to the GRU, within the series on the Russian Cyberintelligence Community, that the Sixth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":26,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorised","8":"entry"},"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/about-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/about-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"BigBoss","author_link":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/author\/bigboss\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}