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FBI and Homeland Security Detail Russian Hacking Campaign In New Report (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI have released an analysis of the allegedly Russian government-sponsored hacking groups blamed for breaching several different parts of the Democratic party during the 2016 elections. The 13-page document, released on Thursday and meant for information technology professionals, came as Barack Obama announced sanctions against Russia for interfering in the 2016 elections. The report was criticized by security experts, who said it lacked depth and came too late. "The activity by [Russian intelligence services] is part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens," wrote the authors of the government report. "This [joint analysis report] provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. government." The government report follows several from the private sector, notably a lengthy section in a Microsoft report from 2015 on a hacking team referred to as "advanced persistent threat 28" (APT 28), which the company's internal nomenclature calls Strontium and others have called Fancy Bear. Also mentioned in the government document is another group called APT 29 or Cozy Bear. The Microsoft report contains a history of the groups' operation; a report by security analysts ThreatConnect describes the team's modus operandi; and competing firm CrowdStrike detailed the attack on the Democratic National Committee shortly before subsequent breaches of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign were discovered.
that we, the united states, have worked to skew elections and overthrow governments for nearly fifty years as though it were nothing more than another element of common foreign policy. However, whenever a foreign nation tries to influence our elections, its somehow a capital offence the world must take seriously.
If sanctions didnt work for Ukrane, they wont work here. Although they do an amazing job of allowing you to avoid the fact of the matter which is that Hillary Clinton was a turd of a candidate who rigged the parties primary, and enjoyed limited popularity outside major metropolitan areas. She never set foot in places like Wisconsin, took a gamble that LA was somehow bigger than all the midwest, and lost.
Good people go to bed earlier.
It shows just how massive the partisan divide is. It seems to have completely slipped peoples' minds that "breaking into the DNC to look for dirt to use against the Democratic Presidential Candidate" is EXACTLY what started a little controversy called "Watergate." But, because it's politically advantageous, a number of people seem to be dead set on ignoring or dismissing any evidence about what happened this time.
Let's be _absolutely_ clear: This isn't about sour grapes because the Democrats lost. This isn't about attacking Trump (though he and his supporters treat it as such, which is disturbing in its own way). This _is_ about what happens next time, because if you establish a precedent that it's basically okay for foreign governments to hack and dox political campaigns in the USA, they're going to keep doing it. Worse, others like China or Iran might just decide to join in. Worse still, candidates might preemptively cozy up to Russia or whomever in hopes of getting assistance against their opponent(s).
The burden of proof is on the one making allegations of Russian hacking. We know what nation state level hacking looks like thanks, ironically, to Snowden. We know the NSA can intercept your new router in the mail and install a durable backdoor on it that will survive everything you do to it. We know the NSA has TEMPEST vans that can snoop on your screen and keyboard.
The idea that a nation state is left to rely upon low level phishing scams seems laughable at best. Just look to past examples to see that they had better stuff than this.
Here are a few past examples of real hacking. Note how much more sophisticated these attacks were:
* Theremin's bug
* MI6 spies on Russia with fake rock
Please tell me again why Russia has fallen back to kiddie level phishing scams? Remember, the burden of proof is on the people saying "it's Russia" and I'm not going to let anyone shift that.
When some people tell me that Russel's teapot is in orbit and others say it's not, I'm going to wait for evidence. I can't just average them out and conclude that a teacup or possibly a saucer is up there flying around, if not a whole teapot.