Russian hackers attack Pentagon e-mail: Report

[Hindustani78]

Russian hackers attack Pentagon e-mail: Report | Zee News
Last Updated: Friday, August 7, 2015 - 11:10

Washington: A "sophisticated cyber attack" by alleged Russian hackers forced the US department of defence to shut down its joint staff unclassified e-mail system, leaving thousands of workers without mails for nearly two weeks, the US media reported.

US officials who spoke on conditions of anonymity on Thursday said that the intrusion happened around July 25 and affected about 4,000 military and civilian personnel, Xinhua reported, citing NBC News.

The officials said the hackers coordinated the cyber attack on Pentagon through social media accounts, adding that they could not decide whether the Russian government was behind the attack.

In another hacking incident last year, alleged Russian hackers breached the White House`s computer system and reportedly read the US President Barack Obama`s unclassified e-mails.


IANS

 

[jamahir]

 

[Thunder Bolt]

hahahah

 

[rockstar08]

damn these hackers , few months ago , some scum hacked my twitter

 

[Hindustani78]

Hackers penetrated Pentagon email

6:33 a.m. EDT August 7, 2015
U.S. officials say Russia is behind a cyberattack against the Defense Department in late July that affected about 4,000 government email accounts. Video provided by Newsy Newslook

Intruders hacked into an email system used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, forcing the military to take if off line and "cleanse" it, according to a Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Indications are that the attack was conducted by another government, said the source who was not authorized to speak publicly about it. Experts are still analyzing the scope of the attack and who was responsible for it.

The intrusion occurred about two weeks ago, the source said. It forced the military to take down the network for unclassified information, although control of the system was not lost. The system is expected to be restored soon.

Sources told NBC News that Russians were behind the "sophisticated cyber intrusion," which affected about 4,000 military and civilian personnel. No classified information was taken or revealed.

Although there was no immediate direct link to the Russian government, NBC's sources said it was "clearly the work of a state actor." CBS News sources also reported the Russian link.

The attack came around July 25 and forced the Pentagon to take the email system offline, NBC said.

CNN first reported the hack July 28.

The so-called spear-phishing attack "exposed a new and different vulnerability" not seen before, CNN reported Wednesday, citing an unidentified senior Pentagon official. CNN said that the attack had "the hallmark" of a foreign government but that U.S. officials were not certain.

Spear-phishing attacks trick people into opening infected emails that steal their network credentials and spread through a network.

The hackers used what NBC described as an "automated system that rapidly gathered massive amounts of data and within a minute distributed all the information to thousands of accounts on the Internet." Encrypted social media accounts were used to coordinate the attack.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in April that Russian hackers had briefly broken into the Pentagon's unclassified networks. Hackers believed to have Moscow backing penetrated the State Department and White House networks late last year. President Obama's personal schedule was among the sensitive data that was compromised.

U.S. officials also suspect Russians hacked State Department computer systems in October 2014. China, meanwhile, has been blamed for the massive security breach at the Office of Personnel Management earlier this year that compromised personal information for 22 million people.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://zeenews.india.com/world/us-expels-35-russian-agents-slaps-sanctions-over-hacking_1963068.html
Washington/Moscow: President Barack Obama on Friday sanctioned Russia and expelled 35 of its agents over alleged Russian hacking during the US presidential polls, but his counterpart Vladimir Putin surprisingly refused to retaliate, saying he will watch the moves of President-elect Donald Trump.


"All Americans should be alarmed by Russia's actions," Obama said in a statement as he ordered a number of actions in response to the Russia's alleged aggressive harassment of US officials and cyber operations targeting the US election.

"These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm US interests in violation of established international norms of behaviour," he said yesterday.

The executive order issued by Obama provided additional authority for responding to certain cyber activity that seeks to interfere with or undermine US election processes and institutions, or those of its allies or partners.

"Using this new authority, I have sanctioned nine entities and individuals: the GRU and the FSB, two Russian intelligence services; four individual officers of the GRU; and three companies that provided material support to the GRU's cyber operations," he said.

"In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury is designating two Russian individuals for using cyber-enabled means to cause misappropriation of funds and personal identifying information. The State Department is also shutting down two Russian compounds, in Maryland and New York, used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes, and is declaring 'persona non grata' 35 Russian intelligence operatives," Obama said.

"Finally, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are releasing declassified technical information on Russian civilian and military intelligence service cyber activity, to help network defenders in the US and abroad identify, detect, and disrupt Russia's global campaign of malicious cyber activities," he said.

Obama said these actions are not the sum total of US response to Russia's aggressive activities. "We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicised," he said.

Obama said the US and its allies around the world must work together to oppose Russia's efforts to undermine established international norms of behaviour, and interfere with democratic governance," Obama said.

Meanwhile in Moscow, Putin in response to Obama's sanctions said Russia "will not create problems for American diplomats. We will not expel anyone".

"According to international practice, Russia has all the grounds for a comparable response," Putin said shortly after Russian Foreign Ministry sought his approval for a tit-for-tat move.

"Reserving the right to retaliatory measures, we... Will be planning our next steps in restoring US-Russian relations based on the policies pursued by the administration of president Donald Trump," Putin said.


First Published: Friday, December 30, 2016 - 21:33

 

[Hindustani78]

 

[somebozo]

hahahahah....the Russia is giving tough punch to Americans in cyber security!

 

[Hindustani78]

http://zeenews.india.com/world/russ...-over-usd-17-million-bank-thefts_1974975.html

Moscow: Russia has detained nine people alleged to be part of a cybercrime ring accused of stealing some $17 million dollars from bank accounts, the interior ministry said Wednesday.


The detentions followed a nationwide manhunt. The FSB security agency launched a major operation last year against the alleged 50-strong "hacker group" that pilfered more than one billion rubles ($16.8 million, 15.8 million euros) since 2013, the statement said.

"Nine individuals suspected of participating in hacking attacks were detained on January 25," ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk said. One was placed under arrest.

A total of 27 members and organisers are being investigated, with 19 of them now under arrest in pre-trial jail, the ministry said.

Unnamed security sources on Wednesday told Russian agencies that the latest arrests are connected to a case against legendary hacking collective Lurk that was targeted by law enforcement agencies in a sweep last year.

According to cybersecurity giant Kaspersky, the group was reportedly suspected of stealing some three billion rubles from commercial organisations that included banks.

Russian hackers are in the spotlight over their alleged involvement in cyberattacks targeting the US presidential election campaign but experts say the vast majority of cybercrime in the country is financial.

The FSB itself is also currently caught up in another murky scandal that has seen at least two of its top cybersecurity experts arrested for treason linked to the United States, a lawyer involved in the case has said.

That treason case has also seen the arrest of Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of Kaspersky's cybersecurity unit that probed Lurk.


First Published: Wednesday, February 8, 2017 - 20:41

 

[Hindustani78]

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-marine-captain-op-ed-mc-gazette-2017-2

The Pentagon's budget dwarfs the combined defense spending of the next 10 countries. The Army and Marine Corps are arguably the best-trained fighting forces in the world. The Air Force has the most high-tech aircraft and weaponry, while the Navy maintains nearly 20 aircraft carriers — far more than adversaries like Russia and China that have only one each.

"For example, a multibillion-dollar aircraft carrier that can be bested by a few million dollars in the form of a swarming missile barrage or a small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) capable of rendering its flight deck unusable does not retain its dollar value in real terms. Neither does the M1A1 tank, which is defeated by $20 worth of household items and scrap metal rendered into an explosively-formed projectile.

"The Joint Improvised Threat Defeat Organization has a library full of examples like these, and that is without touching the weaponized return on investment in terms of industrial output and capability development currently being employed by our conventional adversaries."

Moscow's military budget is about $52 billion, versus Washington's proposed defense budget of $583 billion. Yet with far less money, Russia has been a consistent thorn in the US's side in Syria, Ukraine, and now Afghanistan. That's not to mention Moscow's success in cyberwarfare.

"This is the same Russian military whom the RAND Corporation has estimated would be unstoppable in an initial conventional conflict in the Baltic states, even against the combined might of the NATO forces stationed there," Waddell wrote. "Given the generous funding the American people have bequeathed us to provide for the common defense, is it so unreasonable to seek an efficient frontier of that resource's utility?"

 

[Hindustani78]

http://aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-indicts-2-russian-officers-2-others-for-yahoo-hack/772385

The U.S. on Wednesday indicted two Russian intelligence officers and two cyber hackers who are allegedly behind a massive data breach that targeted Yahoo's email servers.

The Justice Department identified the two Russian FSB officers as Dmitry Dokuchaev, 33, and Igor Sushchin, 43. The FSB is Moscow's main intelligence and law enforcement agency.

Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord told reporters the two were acting in their capacity as FSB officers when they worked with Alexsey Belan, 29, and Karim Baratov, 22, both hackers, to carry out the data breach that affected 500 million accounts from 2014 to 2016.

The FSB officers "protected, directed, facilitated and paid criminal hackers to collect information through computer intrusions in the U.S. and elsewhere", the department said in a statement announcing the indictments.

The defendants targeted Yahoo accounts of Russian and U.S. government officials, including cyber security, diplomatic and military personnel, Russian journalists and employees of financial services and other commercial entities.

"The involvement and direction of FSB officers with law enforcement responsibilities makes this conduct that much more egregious," McCord said. "There are no free passes for foreign state-sponsored criminal behavior."

Canadian resident Baratov was arrested Tuesday in that country on a provisional U.S. arrest warrant, and his case is now before a Canadian court.

Belan has been indicted twice before and has been on the FBI's most wanted cyber criminals list for more than three years. He was arrested in Europe in June 2013, but escaped to Russia before he could be extradited.

FBI assistant director Paul Abbate said the U.S. "expects and hopes for" Russia's cooperation in extraditing the remaining three defendants, including Belan, who are currently in Russia. After announcing the indictments U.S. will put out another official request for their extradition, he said.

Any extradition seems highly unlikely, however, as Russia and the U.S. do not share a governing treaty, and it is doubtful Moscow would willfully hand over officials, or individuals accused of working on its behalf.

Yahoo assistant general counsel Chris Madsen said Wednesday's indictment "unequivocally shows the attacks on Yahoo were state-sponsored.

"We’re committed to keeping our users and our platforms secure and will continue to engage with law enforcement to combat cybercrime," he said in a statement.