Russia accused on coordinated "avalacnche of hacking"

US Hacking Charges, Sharing Cyberweapons With NATO Inflame Danger of ‘Real War’

US, UK and Dutch authorities levied heavy accusations against Russian intelligence officials Thursday, alleging that seven Russians had hacked various agencies, organizations and institutions. The accusations come just one day after the US announced it would share offensive cyberwar technology with NATO allies “if asked.”

Sputnik,

5 October, 2018

"We announce an indictment charging seven Russian military officers with violation of several US criminal laws for malicious cyber activities against the United States and its allies," US Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers told reporters Thursday. Four of the accused are allegedly GRU agents, Russian military intelligence, who were previously expelled from the Netherlands, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Alleged targets include the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Westinghouse nuclear power company and the World Anti-Doping Agency, the keepers of drug-testing data on Olympic athletes. Demers also claimed the Russians attacked a Swiss lab that was analyzing the toxic substance believed to have been used to poison the Skripals in Salisbury, UK, earlier this year, and of course he also renewed the perennial accusation of Russia having attempted to sway the US 2016 elections.

 

The LA Times noted the accusations are backed by digital fingerprints and on-the-ground surveillance of alleged Russian spy teams.

The Russian Foreign Ministry responded to the accusations Thursday by saying the US was on a "dangerous path" and that the Trump administration was "poisoning" the atmosphere of US-Russia relations. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the US was struggling to keep the "old fiction about 'Russian interference into 2016 US elections'" alive, Sputnik reported.

"We regret to see how the US authorities continue to poison the atmosphere of Russia-US relations with new portions of baseless accusations against Russia, which some other NATO countries rush to repeat on orders from Washington," Ryabkov said. "The Western public is being intimidated again with 'Russian hackers,' this time allegedly involved in 'breaking into' computer networks almost all over the world."

US Defense Secretary James Mattis, at a meeting with NATO allies in Brussels, said Russia would "have to be held to account."

"Basically, the Russians got caught with their equipment, people who were doing it, and they have got to pay the piper," Mattis said. He did not elaborate on the nature of that retaliation or response.

The previous day, Mattis promised US allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) the use of its offensive cyberwarfare technology if they so desired.

"We will formally announce that the United States is prepared to offer NATO its cyber capabilities if asked," Katie Wheelbarger, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Wheelbarger also said the US offering its cyber capabilities "sends a message primarily aimed at Russia."

Journalist and author Daniel Lazare told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear Thursday that since some of the DOJ's accusations date several years back, the timing of the twin announcements was probably intended to provide a pretext for going on the cyberwar offensive.

​But that's dangerous, he noted, because "cyberwar can lead to real war very easily."

Listen to "Flurry of allegations announced by NATO members targeting Russia" on Spreaker.

"We're seeing a dramatic, dramatic heating up in the international temperature, and cyberwar is turning into a really increasingly important part of that escalation. It's very dangerous," he said. "The US, especially, is being very aggressive."

Lazare noted the "supposedly pro-Russian Trump administration" is being very "aggressive at targeting Russia and trying to mobilize NATO against Russia — and they're probably succeeding."

Lazare focused primarily on the alleged hacking of medical records of nearly 250 athletes from 30 countries, many of whom had been granted exemptions from Olympic rules regarding therapeutic use of drugs. Russia's entire Olympic team was barred from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, this past February, due to extensive and repeated findings by the International Olympic Committee. However, individual Russian athletes were still allowed to compete, just not under the Russian flag. Russian athletes had previously been individually barred from past Olympic games for infractions of the policy. In addition, the IOC stripped Russia of 41 of its Olympic medals retroactively for failed doping tests.

"Maybe the Russians are trying to dig up ammunition to use to counter American charges that they're abusing the rules. It's very hard to say. It's difficult to say how much substance there is to these indictments. All we can say, though, is the US is really leading the charge; it's really being aggressive, and the whole situation is very dangerous. And I have zero confidence in the responsibility or the sobriety of the people who are leading this offensive — or their honesty."

"An indictment that will never come to trial is worth very little," Lazare said, noting that like most other US and UK indictments of Russian intelligence operatives, none of them will likely ever see the inside of a courtroom.

"The Trump administration has announced a huge cyberwar offensive in which they will be much more aggressive than the Obama or Bush II administrations were, in what they say is countering Russian or Chinese threats but will really mean being proactive, to knock them out before they can attack the US, assuming that's even what they intended to do."

From RT

US & allies hit Russia with coordinated avalanche of hacking accusations. Here are the allegations.

New Zealand joins the chorus

And faithfully echoes the worst propaganda channel in the world

West accuses Russia of global cyber-plots

Russian spies have been accused of involvement in a series of cyber-plots across the globe, leading the US to level charges against seven agents.

Alleged Russian agents in a parking lot near the OPCW in The Hague in April during the intervention of Dutch officers. Photo: AFP PHOTO /DUTCH DEFENCE MINISTRY

The US justice department said targets included the global chemical weapons watchdog, anti-doping agencies and a US nuclear company.

The allegations are part of an organised push-back against alleged Russian cyber-attacks around the world.

Russia earlier dismissed the allegations as "Western spy mania".

BBC security correspondent Gordon Correra says counterintelligence investigations - tracking another country's spies - are normally among the most secret, so some of Thursday's revelations are stunning.

What is Russia accused of?

• The Netherlands has accused four Russians of plotting to hack the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which had been probing the chemical attack on a Russian ex-spy in the UK.
  
• The UK government accused the GRU of being behind four high-profile cyber-attacks, whose targets included firms in Russia and Ukraine; the US Democratic Party; and a small TV network in the UK.
• The US said its anti-doping agency and the US nuclear energy company Westinghouse were targeted by Russian intelligence.
  
• Canada said "with high confidence" that breaches at its centre for ethics in sports and at the Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency were carried out by Russian intelligence.
  
  Added to this, the Dutch authorities have said a laptop seized from the four suspects in April was found to have been used in Brazil, Switzerland and Malaysia.
  
  In Malaysia, the Dutch said, it was used to target the investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 over territory held by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine. All 298 people on board were killed.
   
• What has Russia said?
•  
  Its foreign ministry has said a statement would follow shortly after it dismissed the earlier allegations from the UK and the Netherlands as "Western spy mania... picking up pace".
  
  The Russian embassy in London said the UK's statement was "reckless" and part of an "anti-Russian campaign by the UK government".

  What have the other countries said?

  John Demers, US Assistant Attorney General for National Security, told a press conference in Washington that many of the attacks were aimed at "altering perceptions of the truth".
  
  It has indicted seven people, four of whom were the men expelled from the Netherlands, while the other three were among those charged in July with hacking Democratic officials during the 2016 US elections.
  
  A joint statement from British Prime Minister Theresa May and her Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte said the alleged plot demonstrated "the GRU's disregard for global values and rules that keep us all safe".
  
  Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the UK was discussing further sanctions against Russia with its allies.
  The EU has also denounced the alleged cyber-plots.
  
  The US Justice Department indicted seven agents of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency as part of a joint crackdown with allies Britain and the Netherlands on a series of major hacking plots attributed to Moscow. Photo: AFP / FBI

  What were the suspects doing in the Netherlands?

  The four suspects identified by Dutch officials had diplomatic passports and included two IT experts and two support agents, officials said.
  
  They hired a car and parked it in the car park of the Marriot hotel in The Hague, which is next to the OPCW office, to hack into the OPCW's wifi network, Major General Onno Eichelsheim from the Dutch MIVD intelligence service said.
  
  Equipment in the car boot was pointed at the OPCW and was being used to intercept login details, he said, adding that the antenna for the operation lay under a jacket on the car's rear shelf.
  
  When the men were intercepted they tried to destroy one of the mobile phones they were carrying, Maj Gen Eichelsheim said.
  
  He said one of their mobile phones was found to have been activated near the GRU building in Moscow, while another carried a receipt for a taxi journey from a street near the GRU to the airport.
  
  Maj Gen Eichelsheim said the group were planning to travel to Switzerland, to a laboratory in Spiez where the OPCW analysed samples.
  
  They never made it. Instead, the four were immediately escorted out of the country, he added.

  Who are the suspects?

  They were named by the MIVD as hackers Alexei Morenetz and Yevgeny Serebriakov, and support agents Oleg Sotnikov and Alexei Minin.
  Officials said they were from the GRU's Unit 26165, which has also been known as APT 28. The UK's ambassador to the Netherlands, Peter Wilson, said the unit had "sent officers around the world to conduct brazen close access cyber-operations" - which involve hacking into wifi networks.
  
  He said the hackers were planning to travel on to the OPCW-certified laboratory in Spiez near Berne in Switzerland, where the Novichok nerve agent used in March's attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British city of Salisbury was identified.
  
  At the time the Russian operation was disrupted, the OPCW was investigating the Skripal case as well as an alleged chemical attack in April on the Syrian town of Douma near Damascus by Russian-backed government forces, the MIVD said.
  
  "With its aggressive cyber-campaigns, we see the GRU trying to clean up Russia's own mess - be it the doping uncovered by Wada [the World Anti-Doping Agency] or the nerve agent identified by the OPCW," Mr Wilson said.
   
• What was on their computer?
•  
  A laptop seized from the suspects was found to have been used in Brazil, Switzerland and Malaysia, the Dutch officials said.
  
  The cyber-operation in Malaysia targeted the attorney general's office and Malaysian police as well as the investigation into MH17's shooting down, Ambassador Wilson said.
  
  Earlier this year Dutch-led international investigators concluded that a missile that brought down MH17 belonged to a Russian brigade. Russia has denied any involvement in the plane's destruction, which led to the deaths of many Dutch citizens.
  
  Data from the laptop showed it was also present in the Swiss city of Lausanne where it was linked to the hacking of a laptop belonging to Wada, which has exposed doping by Russian athletes.
   
• What is the GRU?
   
   
  The GRU, also known as the Main Intelligence Directorate, is the intelligence arm of the Russian military.
  
  It is different to the former KGB (now known as the SVR and FSB) as it conducts undercover military operations and collects intelligence operations around the globe.
  
  In recent years the GRU has been accused of undercover involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, which saw the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
  It is believed that the two men accused of poisoning Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, are GRU agents.
  
  One of the men was subsequently identified by an investigative website as Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, an officer in Russia's GRU military intelligence.
  
  - BBC