MOSCOW — The ransomware hackers suspected of targeting Colonial Pipeline and other businesses around the world have a strict set of rules.
First and foremost: Don’t target Russia or friendly states. It’s even hard-wired into the malware, including coding to prevent hacks on Moscow’s ally Syria, according to cybersecurity experts who have analyzed the malware’s digital fingerprints.
They say the reasons appear clear. Continue reading.
The following article by Jacqueline Thomsen was posted on the Hill website August 22, 2018:
Credit: thinkstock
Microsoft’s revelation that Russia-linked hackers targeted conservative groups is raising flags about who the Kremlin has in its crosshairs ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
The majority of previously disclosed cyberattacks linked to Moscow have targeted Democrats, but the latest false sites, apparently created by the hacking group known as “Fancy Bear,” were aimed at conservative think tanks publicly critical of Russia — a sign that the group could be expanding its attacks to go after any potential enemies in the U.S. Continue reading “Russian hackers turn on anti-Kremlin conservatives”
The following article by Michael S. Schmidt was posted on the New York Times website July 13, 2018:
Donald J. Trump encouraged Russia at a news conference to find Hillary Clinton’s missing correspondence.Published OnJuly 27, 2016CreditImage by Todd Heisler/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — It was one of the more outlandish statements in a campaign replete with them: In a news conference in July 2016, Donald J. Trump made a direct appeal to Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails and make them public.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said, referring to emails Mrs. Clinton had deleted from the private account she had used when she was secretary of state. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
As it turns out, that same day, the Russians — whether they had tuned in or not — made their first effort to break into the servers used by Mrs. Clinton’s personal office, according to a sweeping 29-page indictment unsealed Friday by the special counsel’s office that charged 12 Russians with election hacking.
View the complete article on the New York Times website here.
The following article by Morgan Chalfant was posted on the Hill website January 18, 2018:
Russia’s cyber operations against the United States are showing signs of accelerating even as lawmakers grapple with how to deter and respond to the threat.
Moscow-linked hackers have expanded to new political targets, including the U.S. Senate, in the wake of the hacking and disinformation campaign during the 2016 presidential race.
The hackers, said to have links to Russia’s GRU military intelligence unit, are part of the same group that was implicated in the 2016 hacks of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Continue reading “Russian hackers move to new political targets”
The following article by Shan Harris was posted on the Washington Post website January 12, 2018:
The Russian hackers who stole emails from the Democratic National Committee as part of a campaign to interfere in the 2016 election have been trying to steal information from the U.S. Senate, according to a report published Friday by a computer security firm.
Beginning in June, the hackers set up websites meant to look like an email system available only to people using the Senate’s internal computer network, said the report by Trend Micro. The sites were designed to trick people into divulging their personal credentials, such as usernames and passwords.
The Associated Press was first to write about the report. Continue reading “Russian hackers who compromised DNC are targeting the Senate, company says”
The following article by Raphael Satter, Jeff Donn and Nataliya Vasilyeva was posted on the Associated Press website December 22, 2017:
PARIS (AP) — Russian television anchor Pavel Lobkov was in the studio getting ready for his show when jarring news flashed across his phone: Some of his most intimate messages had just been published to the web.
Days earlier, the veteran journalist had come out live on air as HIV-positive, a taboo-breaking revelation that drew responses from hundreds of Russians fighting their own lonely struggles with the virus. Now he’d been hacked. Continue reading “Russian hackers hunted journalists in years-long campaign”
