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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.
Not so fast, comrades! We'll teach you to inform our electorate!
Please look at what they provided. There is literally no evidence given in the document, not even an attempt. They make up some names, put them in a diagram and say that is proof. They didn't even try.
This document is one of those DNC talking points that isn't valid. Now the DNC supporters will be screaming that the FBI released proof of the attack, but not one of them will even look at it to see that the document doesn't contain anything even attempting to prove it. Its just a placeholder to give DNC supporters talking points to use. Watch over the next week how many of them cite this document is unquestionable proof and will refuse to hear anyone question it.
"The FBI and DHS have shown proof that the Russians did it."
"Are you questioning the integrity of the FBI by saying the document is lying?"
Mark my words, you will hear the above non-stop now.
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.
The report in no was alleges "foreign influence." It simply describe a cyber intrusion of Democratic Party assets and individuals in technical detail, ascribes the techniques and tools used in the intrusion to entities believed to be (or affiliated with) the Russians, and recommends sensible, albeit completely standard, countermeasures to similar future such attacks. The report in no way addresses, suggests, or concludes how any information gained in the attack was used to “interfere” with the recent election. Critically, there report does not ascribe any of the damaging Wikileak documents, which were the documents that most appear to have had a damaging effect on Clinton, to the attacks that were subject of the report. The report is what it is. It isn't what it isn't, a report addressing election "interference."
I bet the rest of the World can pause and find this amusing, since we Americans probably sought to influence more elections the last century than any nation... looking at you Central & South America.
I'm as bewildered as the next fellow as to how we ended up our newest Commander-in-Chief, but I also believe it's time he and the former administration started working together like big boys.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
An article talking about Russia trying to influence American politics, but not mentioning George Soros or foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation...
That is propaganda.
This report was ripped to shreds yesterday.
It's mostly OWASP copypasta with recommended mitigations and a few interesting tidbits.
I'm also not clear on why this submission linked to a copy of the report. Best compare it with the original report in case there are any differences..
Pages 1-3: overview of recent activities of some hacking groups
Page 4: list of these groups
Pages 5-12: suggested security measures (copied from "Cybersecurity for dummies"?)
Page 13: contacts
Again, no evidence of Russian involvement. Or anything that can be called a detailed analysis.
I am really appalled at how many people don't take the Russian interference seriously and blame it on some kind of Democrat/Obama conspiracy. This has been happening in eastern European countries for decades and Russia has now been targeting also western Europe since the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine. Russia is funding right-wing populist parties and helping them out with propaganda all across the western hemisphere in an attempt to discredit our democracies and our free press.
Don't believe it? Google "russia populist funding". Here are the top three links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
http://www.economist.com/news/...
It's really scary how much success they are having in sowing distrust in our institutions and our free press. Every time I read someone here decrying some mayor western news outlet as "Fake News" I am reminded of the effectiveness of Putins troll army.
What happened that we truly know of:
1. In the summer of 2015, someone (evidence points to Russian) spear-phished passwords from unsavvy staffers on the DNC email server
2. Almost a year later, Wikileaks publishes a dump of DNC emails. It is assumed by many to have come from the previous infiltration, though there are other ways Wikileaks could have obtained the data, and no definitive link connecting the two events have so far been presented.
3. Through the email dump, the American public is able to see the DNC's inner workings, including:
- party officials colluding to hinder Bernie Sanders
- party insider helping the Clinton campaign to cheat during debate
- astroturf campaign to create illusion of spontaneous public protest against opponent
- journalists coordinating with party officials to ensure party messaging is on track
4. Some voters may have reconsidered their voting decisions, or even the decision to participate in this cycle, due to the above information.
5. Critical states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania which were assumed to be safe states for Clinton (and who as a result did not campaign aggressively there), instead fall to Trump during the general election, ensuring a GOP win.
What the press & defeated party instead want you to think:
1. Russia hacked America
2. Trump is now the President
3. "... we're not saying Trump administration is a creation of the Russian state... *wink wink nudge nudge* but the Trump administration is obviously a creation and stupid dumb puppet of the Russian state... for realz tho... also, don't listen to fake news"
There is an immense effort right now to make us take mental shortcuts, to skip certain events in our memories, to forget that certain misdeeds were done not by Russians but by Americans.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
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).
Does that make it OK that the DNC was hacked and its private communications were released in an attempt to influence the election?
The oversensitivity with regards to Trump's election win is sad. Anyone calling his win illegitimate or whatever is an idiot and should be treated as such, but for some reason a whole bunch of people want to continue living out their partisan fantasies after the election is over.
The fact that so many people can then use this as an excuse to not even care about espionage conducted against our election process is nothing short of pathetic.
The problem is that we're conflating the two. The answer to the first one is pretty much certainly yes. The answer to the second is a lot less clear and, given that the attack didn't require anything like the capabilities of a state-level adversary, the response is a problem. The evidence that we have for the hack shows that a script kiddie, probably in Russia, hacked the DNC. Russia might have done it as a state-sanctioned operation, but so might one of hundreds of individuals (including a load of bored teenagers).
The real story with regard to the emails is that the DNC (and, most likely, the GOP) has really crappy infosec and is basically wide open and many parts of the US government are probably in a similar situation. The NSA has been tasked with a dual mission of attack and defence and has prioritised attack the point that it has completely failed at defence.
Blaming Russia and kicking our Russian diplomats led to retaliation and made the US look stupid. Everyone knows that attribution for cyber attacks is incredibly hard and all that this has done is shown that the relevant agencies in the USA doesn't know how incompetent they are because they don't even understand the problem properly.
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