Exploring Espionage: Operation Rubicon

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9 Jan 2026

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Compromised encryption machines would lead to an intel bonanza that lasted decades.

Today, we can communicate globally in a matter of seconds. Texts, pictures, and even voice messages traverse the globe, and for the most part, we don’t even give them a second thought.

The same can be said about security. While most people can use a smartphone, more often than not, people aren’t too phased about understanding how it works. While simple (ish) is good, for the most part, the average person will simply assume that the app or device they are using is, in fact, secure.

But sometimes, it’s not. Today is one of those tales, and for it to succeed, it would leverage Supply Chain vulnerabilities, an attack vector that is still highly relevant today.

The Background

To set the stage, we need to go back more than five decades, right to the midst of the Cold War. While today, we civilians have access to remarkably good encryption protocols, things were different back then. Not only was good encryption harder to come by, but the reliance on both wired and wireless transmissions meant that more often than not, there was a genuine need for both militaries and governments the world over to encrypt their communications.

While some countries had agencies that were up to this task, for smaller countries or countries that might not have access to the same technology, the solution was simple. They’d outsource it, and to do so, most countries would contact CryptoAG.

A Swiss company that would be founded shortly after WW2, CryptoAG would rely on proprietary products and the Swiss reputation for privacy to ensure that its customers' communications would remain secure. As the Iron Curtain dropped and tensions began to rise, the number of customers was steadily increasing. Notably, many of these customers would come from within the Iron Curtain itself.

While the scandal would play out over a number of decades through the 1970s and into the 1990s, the foundation was already being laid for some intensive espionage action that would head straight to the history books.

The controversy would shake allies and jeopardise alliances. Countries in green were party to the spying, while countries in red would be targeted during the operation. Source: Wikipedia.

The Controversy

As the 50s turned into the 60s, Western intelligence agencies had been paying attention to CryptoAG, their hardware and more importantly, their client list. By the time the 1970s came around, Cold War tensions were continuing to increase. Clearly, something had to give.

The key point would come when the West German intelligence agencies (BND) would decide to team up with the US Central Intelligence Agency to make a play for the company. Rather than compromise a staff member or even a series of machines, the decision was made to make a direct play for the actual company.

What would start as Operation Thesaurus and end as Operation Rubicon was a joint CIA/BND operation to take over CryptoAG and continue operating the business as a going concern while providing compromised hardware to global military and intelligence agencies.

Discretion was key here. The stakes were high, and it wasn't just money at stake. If they could pull it off, the agencies would have near real-time access to some of the world's best intelligence, giving a near-unbeatable edge in the ongoing information war. To fail would mean global embarrassment as well as the awkward disclosure that some of the countries that CryptoAG would service would be allies of the countries carrying out the operation.

The best bit about the whole story is that, from the espionage side, the operation didn’t rely on a single point of failure. In some instances, they would simply weaken the encryption methods that would be used by the device, while in others, they would leave a permanent “backdoor” in place that would grant persistent access.

Do some of these words sound familiar? They should, because ongoing discussion and controversy around such strategies are continuing, even today.

The Fallout

If the existence of such an operation is surprising to you, you’ll be even more surprised to learn that the operation would run for more than two decades before its discovery. Not only did it survive the Cold War, but it would also survive the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the entire collapse of the USSR into separate states in the early 1990s and even the Gulf War in 1991.

It didn’t survive the entire time unscathed, though. The first cracks in the operation would come in 1986 when Iran would arrest an international CryptoAG supplied after they suspected one or some of their machines had been compromised.

The trouble was at this point, being able to prove it. And while most countries weren’t able to do this, it didn’t stop the rumour mill. In the intelligence world, people were talking. Despite this, CryptoAG would maintain a roaring trade. Over time, the operation would slowly start to wind down, first with the BND’s withdrawal in the mid-90s, before the CIA would eventually wrap it up as well.

As the world was about to learn, though, what is gone is not always forgotten.

German weekly magazine Der Spiegel would help bring light to the allegations. Source: Wikipedia.

A New Age For Surveillance

The craziest thing about the whole operation was that if it wasn’t for a bit of strange luck, the whole thing would have been swept under the carpet and probably been missed entirely.

Interestingly enough, it would be the aftermath of 9/11, the development of open-source intelligence and persistence by investigative journalists over the years that would eventually blow the lid off the whole thing.

The thing is that over the decades, while more than a few people realised something was amiss, they typically suffered from two distinct differences along the way. Some vaguely suspected was amiss, but didn’t know what. Some, with far greater levels of knowledge, suspected that they knew the problem but lacked the proof to substantiate it. In 1995, the Baltimore Sun would write about the allegations, while the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel would also make allegations after carrying out its own investigation.

It would take another 25 years for the allegations to finally see the light of day.

In 2020, a tri-nation investigative team was formed as Swiss, German and US journalists would come together to help uncover the details behind the operation. What they found would be stunning. Not only had the spying occurred, but multiple allies had been spied on, while all manner of human rights abuses had been identified and subsequently ignored.

The best bit about the whole operation? Much of the fallout would also come from the strategies that were used during the operation. While the Germans preferred to be discreet, letting their allies do their thing, the Americans preferred to spy on, well, everybody really.

The times change, but some things stay the same. Patriot Act, anybody?

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