Russian Institute Solicits Foreign Companies But Masks Ties with Russia's Defense Ministry

My company recently published a report which discovered that aerospace companies with joint ventures in Russia and China are hacked 2.4 times more often than those companies who don't. However, hacking a network is small potatoes when compared with the amount of intellectual property that is transferred in other ways.

One of the more surprising discoveries that we made while researching that report had to do with a Russian institute that was set up primarily to engage foreign companies with various types of assistance: the Research Institute of Mathematic Modeling and Intelligent Control Systems. This institute is a part of St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University's Institute of International Educational Programs. The website is in English and is not listed on SPSPU's Russian home page so it's entire focus is foreign-based. 

It conducts applied research in the following areas:

• Distributed industrial controllers networks for decentralized control of distributed objects and technological processes
• Intelligent multi-agent based control of android robots and cooperative behavior of robots network 
• Numerical modeling of external and internal flows aimed at dragand noise reduction
• Computation of vortical flows and wakes aimed at enhancement of safety in air and ground transportation 
• Numerical analysis of stress/strain distributions in the real world industrial objects, in particular for those working in the extreme conditions
• Numerical non-linear analysis of visco-elasticity, contact interaction, large deformations
• Seismic analysis, simulation of crash-tests, modeling of nucleation and propagation of damage
• Computation of cooling of electronic devices, heating and air-conditioning systems >> Development of graphic user interface to control virtual objects 
• Polygonal and NURBS-modeling

A few of the U.S. companies who work with RIMMICS include Boeing and GE. Foreign companies include EADS, Airbus, SAP, LG electronics and Bombardier. I wonder how many of those companies know that RIMMICS also provides avionics services, among others, for the Russian Ministry of Defense because it's not disclosed anywhere on the website.

More information on RIMMICS and other surprises that we've uncovered when investigating foreign vendors who service key U.S. enterprises will be disclosed at our upcoming Suits and Spooks luncheon at the Ritz Carlton Tysons Corner on Sept 10, 2013. Seats are extremely limited so register today. 

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Deputy Prime Minister of Russia is worried about backdoors in Western tech

In the course of writing this month's S&TI Flash Traffic report for our subscribers, I came across this interesting article which demonstrates that the U.S. isn't the only country worried about supply chain security.

I had one of our Russian-speaking contractors translate it for inclusion into our report. Here's the English version:

February 23rd – Finmarket – The first breakthrough in technologies that will be produced by the fund of advanced research will appear by the end of this year, declared deputy prime-minister Dmitry Rogozin. “I think that by the end of even this year we will have one or two new ideas, which will facilitate a breakthrough decisions for our science of warfare,” said Dmitry Rogozin at the celebratory event hosted on February 23rd in the Technology Museum. In his opinion, before the fund starts their work a few months for organizational procedures will be needed.  "We will then acquire unique innovations, among others student auditoriums and institute flexible testing stations, all of which will exist in 5-7 year, no more,” said Rogozin. Altogether, he mentioned, the fund will be powered by academic science centers, and the results of its work will be used by lead institutes of domestic industry.
In addition, appearing before members of the patriotic organization which gathered from the regions, Rogozin asserted that Russia is obligated to carefully use foreign micro-electronics and software, and better overall to develop their own technology.  “Actually, cyber security in the West is understood as bookmarks in chips and software, supplied to different countries, bookmarks, which activate at a defined moment,” – said Rogozin. “If Russia can’t product a quality electronic-component base and  supply their own satellites, buying microelectronics abroad, it’s impossible to be exactly sure how these satellites will react at hour “X” – mentioned deputy prime minister. “Who are they, and who will they transfer to? And will they work for us, or will they be worked into another group?” – questioned Rogozin. 

The Fund of Advanced Research is Russia's newly created version of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This article demonstrates the Russian government's concern over supply chain security when it comes to their reliance upon foreign-made microchips and software. Ironically, while U.S. companies make these products, we often don't make them in the U.S. but in China; hence we have the same problem that Russia does.

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