West accuses 'pariah state' Russia of global hacking campaign

[webfact]

West accuses 'pariah state' Russia of global hacking campaign

By Guy Faulconbridge, Anthony Deutsch and Lisa Lambert

 

Dutch Minister of Defence Ank Bijleveld, general Onno Eichelsheim, director of Netherlands Defence Intelligence and Security Service and British Ambassador to the Netherlands Peter Wilson attend a news conference in The Hague, Netherlands, October 4, 2018. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

 

LONDON/THE HAGUE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Western countries issued coordinated denunciations of Russia on Thursday for running what they described as a global hacking campaign, targeting institutions from sports anti-doping bodies to a nuclear power company and the chemical weapons watchdog.

 

In some of the strongest language aimed at Moscow since the Cold War, Britain said Russia had become a "pariah state".

 

The United States said Moscow must be made to pay the price for its actions. And their allies around the world issued stark assessments of what they described as a campaign of hacking by Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.

 

Russia denied what its Foreign Ministry spokeswoman called a "diabolical perfume cocktail" of allegations dreamt up by someone with a "rich imagination".

 

But the accusations deepen Moscow's isolation at a time when its diplomatic ties with the West have been downgraded over the poisoning of an ex-spy and while it is under U.S. and EU sanctions over actions in Ukraine.

 

Britain and the Netherlands accused Russia of sending agents with wifi antennas to the Hague to try to hack into the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) while it was investigating an attack on an ex-spy in England.

 

The United States indicted seven suspected Russian agents for conspiring to hack computers and steal data to delegitimise international anti-doping organisations and punish officials who had revealed a Russian state-sponsored athlete doping program.

 

They were also accused of trying to hack into Westinghouse Electric Co, a nuclear power company that provides atomic fuel and plant designs. The Justice Department said one of the Russians performed reconnaissance of personnel and stole login credentials at the company.

 

Three of the seven had already been indicted by the special prosecutor investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which Moscow denies.

 

The various accusations were announced at briefings around the globe that were held as NATO defence ministers gathered in Brussels to present a united front to their Cold War-era foe.

 

"This is not the actions of a great power, these are the actions of a pariah state," British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson told reporters.

 

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, at a news conference in the Belgian capital, said Russia must pay a price, and a number of response options were available.

 

EU officials said in a statement Russia's "aggressive act demonstrated contempt for the solemn purpose" of the OPCW. Australia, New Zealand and Canada were among other countries to issue strongly worded statements backing their allies' findings.

 

Russian officials portrayed the allegations as part of an anti-Russian campaign intended to entrench Moscow's reputation as an enemy. Accusations against Russia "know no limits", said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

 

Dutch authorities said they had disrupted the attempt to hack into the Hague-based OPCW in April, a time when the watchdog was looking into both the attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal in Britain and chemical strikes in Syria that the West has blamed on Russia's ally President Bashar al-Assad.

 

Four Russians arrived in the Netherlands on April 10 and were caught three days later with spying equipment at a hotel located next to the OPCW headquarters, the Dutch military intelligence agency said. The men had planned to travel on to a laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland used by the OPCW to analyse samples. Instead, they were expelled to Russia.

 

The Netherlands released copies of passports of the four, which identified them as Alexey Minin, Oleg Sotnikov, Evgenii Serebriakov and Aleksei Morenets, all in their 30s or 40s. Reuters was not immediately able to contact them.

 

AGGRESSOR

Earlier on Thursday, Britain released an assessment based on work by its National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which cast Russia's GRU military intelligence agency as a cyber aggressor which used a network of hackers to sow worldwide discord.

 

The GRU, Britain said, was almost certainly behind the BadRabbit and World Anti-Doping Agency hacking attacks of 2017, the hack of the U.S. Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2016 and the theft of emails from a UK-based TV station in 2015.

 

"The GRU’s actions are reckless and indiscriminate: they try to undermine and interfere in elections in other countries," said British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. "Our message is clear - together with our allies, we will expose and respond to the GRU's attempts to undermine international stability."

 

The GRU, now formally known in Russia by a shorter acronym GU, is the agency Britain has blamed for sending two agents to kill Skripal -- himself a former GRU agent -- with a nerve agent sprayed on his door. Russia says the two men were sightseers who visited Skripal's home town twice on a weekend trip to England.

 

Skripal, his daughter and a police officer fell seriously ill and a British woman later died from poison her partner found in a discarded perfume bottle.

 

After the Skripal poisoning, dozens of Western countries launched the biggest expulsion of Russian spies working under diplomatic cover since the height of the Cold War. Moscow replied with expulsions of Westerners.

 

In a separate case on Thursday, a Norwegian court extended for a second two-week period the detention of a Russian citizen suspected of spying on Norway's parliament. Norway arrested Mikhail Bochkaryov on Sept. 21 as he was about to fly out of the country. Moscow says he is a Russian parliamentary staff member and has demanded Oslo lift the "absurd charges".

 

Britain said the GRU was associated with a host of hackers including APT 28, Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Pawnstorm, Sednit, CyberCaliphate, Cyber Berkut and Voodoo Bear.

 

The United States has sanctioned GRU officers including its chief, Igor Korobov, in 2016 and 2018 for attempted interference in the 2016 U.S. election and cyber attacks.

 

(Additional reporting by Colin Packham, Stephanie van den Berg, Toby Sterling, Idrees Ali, Robin Emmott; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-10-05

[Basil B]

I am sure the Ruski's have been behind many of the recent hacking attacks on banks, face book, etc.

 

The next Sanctions may well be the start of a "a Faraday type internet wall around Russia".

[stevenl]

No denying this, although they most likely will try, but they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

[milwaukeeboy]

Yeah. Russia is the only country doing this. I believe Reuters.

/sarc off

[Becker]

24 minutes ago, milwaukeeboy said:

Yeah. Russia is the only country doing this. I believe Reuters.

/sarc off

Where in the article does it say Russia is the only country doing this?

[Odysseus123]

Gee!

 

Golly gosh,pink leprechauns,an' Puff the Magic Dragon..

[Media1]

Trouble Russians period

[Brunolem]

Russia, Russia, Russia!

If Russia didn't exist, who could the West blame?

Ah yes...China!

When it's not one, it's the other!

 

Russia is probably busy hacking like everyone else, yet it appears to be as bad at it, as it is at poisoning, leaving fingerprints everywhere!

 

With the fingerprints, the West can easily identify the perpetrators since it has a complete list of the GRU employees, which it didn't get by hacking into Russian systems...

 

And while everybody is focused on Russia, no one is looking at the atrocities committed in Yemen and other places, in the name of democracy...

Edited October 5, 2018 by Brunolem

[jgarbo]

9 hours ago, Basil B said:

I am sure the Ruski's have been behind many of the recent hacking attacks on banks, face book, etc.

 

The next Sanctions may well be the start of a "a Faraday type internet wall around Russia".

Your certainty is my dopey assertion. But you have the evidence , right? Let's see it. Or are you a dope?  

[jgarbo]

3 hours ago, Brunolem said:

Russia, Russia, Russia!

If Russia didn't exist, who could the West blame?

Ah yes...China!

When it's not one, it's the other!

 

Russia is probably busy hacking like everyone else, yet it appears to be as bad at it, as it is at poisoning, leaving fingerprints everywhere!

 

With the fingerprints, the West can easily identify the perpetrators since it has a complete list of the GRU employees, which it didn't get by hacking into Russian systems...

 

And while everybody is focused on Russia, no one is looking at the atrocities committed in Yemen and other places, in the name of democracy...

It's OK. The Rednecks will follow Trump over the cliff as he sails away in self powered hot air balloon. Rednecks deserve it.

[Morch]

 

@Brunolem

 

A distraction, or a deflection, is pretty much what you are trying to achieve with your post(s).

 

You do not address the OP. Ignore facts. Raise a set of bogus assertions used as straw-men. And toss in the obligatory everyone-does-it.

 

I don't know that the Yemen fighting got a whole lot to do with democracy, or that such claims are prominent, but hey - that's your deflection, not mine.

 

Carry on.

[Basil B]

10 minutes ago, jgarbo said:

Your certainty is my dopey assertion. But you have the evidence , right? Let's see it. Or are you a dope?  

 

Quote

 

 

Russia accused of cyber-attack on chemical weapons watchdog

In the back of the vehicle, investigators found a laptop connected to a 4G mobile and a wifi panel antenna, partially hidden under a coat, as well as other specialist hacking equipment. They also recovered €20,000 and US$20,000 in cash, as well as taxi receipts from a GRU facility in Moscow and reconnaissance maps.

Train tickets to Basel were also found, along with evidence of online searches for the Spiez lab, Switzerland’s institute for nuclear, biological and chemical protection which had confirmed the British claim that the Skripals had been exposed to the military-grade nerve agent novichok.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/04/netherlands-halted-russian-cyber-attack-on-chemical-weapons-body

[Brunolem]

13 minutes ago, Morch said:

 

@Brunolem

 

A distraction, or a deflection, is pretty much what you are trying to achieve with your post(s).

 

You do not address the OP. Ignore facts. Raise a set of bogus assertions used as straw-men. And toss in the obligatory everyone-does-it.

 

I don't know that the Yemen fighting got a whole lot to do with democracy, or that such claims are prominent, but hey - that's your deflection, not mine.

 

Carry on.

Please explain how London or Washington can come up with the NAMES of the Russian hackers?

Does the GRU post its staff files on its website?

 

Yes, Russia is engaged in cyberwar, but not alone...

 

https://orientalreview.org/2018/10/02/americas-offensive-cyber-strategy/

 

[stevenl]

Just now, Brunolem said:

Please explain how London or Washington can come up with the NAMES of the Russian hackers?

Does the GRU post its staff files on its website?

 

Yes, Russia is engaged in cyberwar, but not alone...

 

https://orientalreview.org/2018/10/02/americas-offensive-cyber-strategy/

 

See the previous post.

[Basil B]

59 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

Please explain how London or Washington can come up with the NAMES of the Russian hackers?

Does the GRU post its staff files on its website?

 

Yes, Russia is engaged in cyberwar, but not alone...

 

https://orientalreview.org/2018/10/02/americas-offensive-cyber-strategy/

 

Quote

In a further blow to the GRU, Bellingcat, the investigative website, revealed that Russia appeared to have inadvertently identified the names and phone numbers of nearly 305 of its agents in its cyber-warfare department.

The names appear on a list of individuals that have access to cars registered to the headquarters of the GRU’s cyber division. Bellingcat said it may constitute “one of the largest mass breaches” of personal data in recent intelligence service history.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/04/netherlands-halted-russian-cyber-attack-on-chemical-weapons-body

 

If you have any doubts as to Russia's involvement you must read the Guardian article in full... (Link Above)

[Brunolem]

9 hours ago, Basil B said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/04/netherlands-halted-russian-cyber-attack-on-chemical-weapons-body

 

If you have any doubts as to Russia's involvement you must read the Guardian article in full... (Link Above)

There is no doubt about Russia involvment, which apparently went to the trouble of also providing internal information about its agents!

 

Yet, how out of 305 names did London or Washington manage to point precisely at 7?

 

Or did the GRU again provide some clues to help the investigators?

[Morch]

13 hours ago, Brunolem said:

Please explain how London or Washington can come up with the NAMES of the Russian hackers?

Does the GRU post its staff files on its website?

 

Yes, Russia is engaged in cyberwar, but not alone...

 

https://orientalreview.org/2018/10/02/americas-offensive-cyber-strategy/

 

 

 

Please stop with your inane deflections, made up claims, nonsense straw-men argument and use of dodgy sources - and bother reading the OP or related links provided. As for the usual "but but but" - yeah, but this ain't what the topic is about.

[Jai Dee]

Several off-topic troll posts have been removed from this thread.

[Basil B]

5 hours ago, Brunolem said:

There is no doubt about Russia involvment, which apparently went to the trouble of also providing internal information about its agents!

 

Yet, how out of 305 names did London or Washington manage to point precisely at 7?

 

Or did the GRU again provide some clues to help the investigators?

Having far superior intelligence...