Russian Cyberspies Targeted MH17 Crash Investigation (trendmicro.com)

itwbennett writes: Security researchers from Trend Micro have found evidence that the Pawn Storm cyberespionage group set up rogue VPN and SFTP servers to target Dutch Safety Board employees before and after the report on the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was finalized. It is likely that the rogue servers were set up with the goal of phishing login credentials from people involved in the MH17 crash investigation in order to obtain access to confidential information, the researchers said.

Comments

Re:Who is surprised?

[Zocalo]

Dumb thing is that KAL007 should have taught them nothing much would come of it even if they did own up, and in this case they could quite easily have pegged the blame on some unidentified rogue elements of the Pro-Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine right from start and probably have walked away from the whole affair without so much as a slap on the wrist. Instead, all the heavy handed actions, conspiracy theory level alternative theories and random protestation, just make it look all the more likely that they have something to hide - which is kind of ironic coming from the nation that pretty much made the concept of "if you've got nothing to hide, then you've got nothing to fear..." not all that long ago.

Re:Who is surprised?

[Rei]

It was not Russia who shot down MH17, it was rebels from Ukraine which were armed by Russia.

Because random untrained individuals can operate a SAM site?

If you count that as Russia, than considering the US have armed rebels pretty much everywhere around the world, I'm pretty sure a good number of the commercial airplanes which were shot down could be attributed to the US.

Since when does the US give SAM sites to random rebel groups? The US doesn't even give (and actively blocks attempts to give) even groups it supports MANPADs, let alone SAM sites. The latter poses a vastly greater threat to commercial airliners - MANPADs can only hit them shortly after takeoff or shortly before landing, while SAM sites can hit them during cruise phase. They're also far more complicated systems and require a lot more training.

I'd also like to remind you that the US also directly shot a commercial airplane (Iran air flight 655), killing 290 civilians. Finally, Ukraine also shot a Russian commercial aircraft in 2001.

So peacetime accidents are equivalent to pumping military hardware and troops into a neighboring country to try to rip off part of it and shooting at anything that flies without warning civil aviation that you're supplying hardware that can shoot their planes down? And FYI, Russia initially tried to hide the fact that Ukraine had accidentally shot down Siberia Airlines Flight 1812, because they were actively propping up Ukraine's then government, claiming that it was impossible for the S200 to overshoot by 250 kilometers. And in the former case the US military made 10 attempts to hail Flight 655, three of which it received, and none of which it responded to.

In the former case, Ukraine initially denied its culpability, but later admitted it. In the latter case, the US admitted its involvement pretty much immediately. Russia to this date continues to deny, obfuscate, and apparently, hack too to try to avoid culpability.

And by the way, the US certainly played an important role in the current Ukrainian situation. The ones who are in power right now in Ukraine had support from the US and Europe.

Oh yes, the US clearly cares so tremendously much for Ukraine - that's why they won't even toss them a single Javelin, let alone heavy hardware, to help them defend their country, right? Clearly Russia had no choice but to flood the country with troops and vast amounts of heavy military hardware!

Re:Who is surprised?

[Zocalo]

I don't think that's the issue that the Russians are so touchy about. Realistically, it's highly unlikely that the Russians would just "give" a BUK to the separatists and let them drive it away without there being some unofficial advisors along for the ride to provide at least some training/oversight. That implies that not only are Russian personnel officially on the ground (something they are still denying, despite all the evidence to the contrary) but that they were almost certainly on hand when the BUK was used since a BUK apparently requires override to enable it to fire at a commercial aircraft that was presumably broadcasting its IFF, something untrained personnel wouldn't have been likely to know how to do.

I don't think it's about the slap on the wrist for culpability they might have got (or not, given what happened in the aftermath of all the events you listed), and others like KAL007 and KAL902, it's about maintaining the pretense that they have no official involvement on the ground. Basically, in their panic after MH17 was shot down, the Russian government rushed out a story to maintain that pretense that was never going to stand up to scrutiny instead of taking their time and coming up with something that might at least have raised enough doubt. Now they are stuck with either trying to defend a story that has more holes in it than the fuselage of MH17 or changing their story and risking blowing away the fiction of their non-involvement they have spun for their own people.