Project CITADEL: Sovereign Client Privilege

MISSION REPORT: OPERATION CITADEL

Target Entity: International Litigation Practice (London/Zurich)
Threat Actor: State-Sponsored Intelligence Service
Asset Class: Privileged Litigation Strategy

The Strategic Context

A top-tier law firm was representing a high-profile political dissident against a foreign government. As the case heated up, Partners started receiving highly targeted "Spear Phishing" emails referencing private meetings that had only been discussed internally.

It became clear that the firm's standard email infrastructure (a major US Cloud Provider) was being monitored. The opponent was not a hacker; it was a State with the capability to intercept communications or legally compel data providers to hand over logs. The firm's "Attorney-Client Privilege" was technically broken.

The Intervention: Sovereign Isolation

Intarmour architected a "Black Box" Strategy to isolate the case data from the rest of the firm's vulnerable infrastructure.

Phase 1: The Sovereign VDR We set up a completely parallel infrastructure hosted in a Tier-IV Swiss Data Center. This environment had no trust relationship with the firm's main network. The encryption keys were held physically by the Senior Partner (Hardware Token), ensuring that not even the cloud provider could access the data (Zero-Knowledge Architecture).

Phase 2: Hardware Hardening The legal team assigned to the case was issued "Mission Laptops"—air-gapped devices with physically removed microphones, disabled USB ports, and a Linux-based immutable operating system (Tails OS). These devices were used only for this case and never connected to the firm's Wi-Fi.

Phase 3: Anti-Surveillance Comms All case communication was moved to an on-premise, self-hosted chat server utilizing the Signal Protocol, accessible only via VPN from the Mission Laptops.

The Operational Outcome

• Privilege Restored: The litigation proceeded for 18 months with zero data leakage. The opposing counsel was constantly blindsided by the firm's strategy, proving they had lost their surveillance window.
• Surveillance Blinded: The attackers continued to target the old email system with phishing, unaware that the real conversation had moved off-grid.
• Reputation Secured: The firm has since established a reputation as the "go-to" practice for high-risk, sensitive litigation against sovereign entities.

Strategic Lesson: If the adversary is a State, the Cloud is a vulnerability. Sovereignty is the only defense.