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Russian Hackers Targeted US Conservative Think-Tanks, Says Microsoft (reuters.com)
retroworks shares a report: Hackers linked to Russia's government tried to target the websites of two right-wing U.S. think-tanks, suggesting they were broadening their attacks in the build-up to November elections, Microsoft said. The software giant said it thwarted the attempts last week by taking control of sites that hackers had designed to mimic the pages of The International Republican Institute and The Hudson Institute. Users were redirected to fake addresses where they were asked to enter usernames and passwords. There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities, but the Kremlin was expected to address the report later on Tuesday. It has regularly dismissed accusations that it has used hackers to influence U.S. elections and political opinion. Casting such allegations as part of an anti-Russian campaign designed to justify new sanctions on Russia, it says it wants to improve not worsen ties with Washington. Further reading: Microsoft Reveals First Known Midterm Campaign Hacking Attempts, and Microsoft Launches Pilot Program To Provide Cybersecurity Protection To Political Campaigns and Election Authorities.
Because they were trying to upload her emails...
The Russians "meddled" in the elections, cries the Jewish media, over and over and over.
In other words, the Jews failed to get their chosen candidate (Clinton) into power by hacking the electronic voting machines, because the overwhelming majority of Americans supported Trump - as can be CLEARLY proven by looking at the size of the crowds that went to his campaign speeches, compared to Clinton's crowds, so the Jews try to make out that Trump can't possibly have won the election, it must have been "meddled" with.
And the same Jews were telling us that Clinton was definitely going to win the election, right up until the end of election night... it's all over Youtube, see for yourself.
Grab the popcorn, folks, we're about to see a roundup of the best conspiracy theories and fake news apologetics of the year!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I've been trying to find an article explaining exactly how these attacks are being linked to Russia. I'd appreciate if someone could post a link. I'm not saying anyone is lying or anything, but a lot of these hacking articles say there are linked to Russia, but how do they know?
Was this also Podesta-style "please send me your password" l33t haxors?
And did they fall for it like the DNC did?
If you've got a group dead-set on never EVER blaming you for immoral hacking... there's really no reason NOT to hack into their systems and gather everything you can from them.
It's kind of what Russia does in everything these days - playing communities against eachother, betraying them, and then shifting the blame to each group to maximize chaos.
Active combat doesn't topple nations anymore, so much as these tactics allow nations to be toppled with a bit of combat in the end.
Russians know better than to target people who only listen to their own self-interest.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
and microsfot hackers target YOU
This proves it. The Russians reprogrammed Americans to VOTE for TRUMP. How sickening.
Seriously. It was never like this before. This was never a place where we had to debate objective facts, and not a place where reality was subject to political opinion. It is bots? Is it trolls? Is it that the demographics of the technology, engineering,and scientifically inclined have changed so much?
Both conservative think tanks happen to be opponents of the Trump administration and critics of Putin.
I'm not sure this overall narrative actually says what you want it to say.
"Russians swayed dumb mouth breathing voters with crazy fake news"
Okay ... we've had a pretty evenly split national electorate for quite awhile now ... so if Russia managed (through the most incredible small investment in political history, btw) to sway enough idiot stupid dumb (did I stick closely enough to the narrative there?) people to sway the presidential election ... then which side did those moronic people come from?
(Spoiler / hint: not the side that won ... outside influence would need to peel votes from the other side ...)
"How dare you steal our dumb voters" might not be the best slogan for ya.
Along with Russians targeting these organizations you can add MI6, Mossad, AISI, CNCIS, CIA, and a whole bunch of officially non existent organizations. Its what Nations Intelligence agencies do. But thanks Microsoft for telling us nothing has changed since the 40s.
doof bags -- Better yet, check your honeypot fail2ban logs and see where all the hacks are really coming from. hmmmm...
answer: rhymes with hamsterdan and choweze ..
Or could it be... the editors are idiots?
Anyone talking about "hackers" certainly is in my book. Yes, that includes most of the "computer security" imperial textile industry, plenty of politicians, lawmakers, assorted journos, and other crud. Which is well-known, since the world is a large place and people who actually know their stuff are few and far between. Even so. It used to be /. wasn't full of itiots. But these guys? The current crop of editors? They're certainly not better than the last crop.
Unlike that of the USSR, who only supported foreign Leftists, Putin's Russia is non-partisan, looking for support and influence wherever they can find it. In Germany, for example, thay happen to be particularly successful among the Left (no doubt with the aid of the old Stasi files). In France they supported the supposed rightists.
Western societies aren't immune to corruption — if the price is right — and for years Putin could afford bribes on the scale of millions.
Likewise, their targeting computers of all political parties is not at all surprising. That the GOP runs a tighter ship is not surprising either...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
since when is it ok for microsoft to just take over websites? is is because this time its with the Russians?
can this be considered microsoft embracing or extending based on the idea that American law enforcement has done the exact same thing? either "to protect the children" or because of the "Russians"
what happens when microsoft enters phase 3 and starts shutting down anyone who doesn't agree with their way once the idea of microsoft taking over sites has been normalized?
The real question is why is microsoft doing this and not the relevant authorities?
I haven't seen yet how Microsoft linked this particular incident, but in general there are many ways. Each group has their own favored tools, techniques, and overall style. When you do it for a living, you get to know them. All combined, it's like a pop radio DJ identifying a new Justin Bieber song, the DJ knows Bieber's sound.
Some groups specialize in certain malware. They have one or two members who are good at actually writing the malware etc. They keep making improvements or variations on the same malware. Other members distribute the malware, repeatedly using the same methods, targeting the same type of targets. They host the malware or other web resources in the same places that worked well last time. Sometimes they talk about things on hacker forums. If you've been a member of such a forum for a few years, most people there assume you're okay - not a cop.
You may recall a few years ago someone called "Stonetewr" was asking on Reddit about how to delete evidence from a server for "a very VIP". Paul Combetta, who worked on Clinton's server, used the email address stonetear@gmail.com and used the name Stonetear on Etsy. Knowing that Stonetear wanted to wipe a server for "a very VIP" a day or two before someone at Combetta's company wiped Hillary's server, and knowing that Combetta goes by Stonetear, it's not hard to figure out that Combetta was working on wiping Hillary's server. No IP tracing required, and it doesn't matter how many proxies and VPNs he used.
On Slashdot, if a new account popped up called JelloLover and they uses ten times as many commas as grammar would indicate, while randomly capitalizing a few words for no reason and saying the things that Jellomizer says, some of us would recognize that's probably Jellomizer's new account. It's similar with the crackers - you get to know them.
Before the US government publicly accuses the Russian government of a specific attack, we can expect the NSA and others would make use of their rather significant data collection capabilities to make some even firmer connections. That's not necessary in order in order for someone who follows the Russian hackers every day to be able to recognize them, though.
Someone might say "it could be a false flag! Someone could impersonate the FSB, just like someone could impersonate Jellomizer or MDSolar!" Yeah, someone COULD post something silly about solar electric, breathlessly pitching whatever MDSolar's company is selling this month. Which would make it look like - MDSolar is spamming his products again? We'd think it was MDSolar because the impersonator was acting like MDSolar, which would fool us into thinking that MDSolar acts like MDSolar. The job of the FSB is to do cyberattacks on Russia's rivals. If someone were being tricky and trying to make a hack look like the work of the FSB, they'd be making it look like FSB is doing their job. I guess maybe the NSA wants Alexander Bortnikov to get a raise?
You are not the victim, you are the aggressor.
You are not my victim. You are full of bull $#1#.
I agree with everything you said up until that. Because you're tarring the entire population of the United States for what our ruling class has done, and what many of us have fought for our entire lives.
That kind of sloppy thinking - blaming the victims, lumping them with their victimizers, and then attacking the group - is what leads to wars, and to the very situations that empower those rulers to create and operate those agencies and perform those operations of which you rightly complain.
It's clear that you're not in the U.S. So let me clue you in to something. If you're getting your idea of what's going on here from the mainstream media - even your own - you have NO IDEA what's really going on here. The mainstream media is a monolith propaganda organization for one of the two ruling factions, and this became obvious to everybody who didn't already know it during the last presidential election cycle. See Wikileaks. (And guess why they're now trying to claim that Wikileaks was part of a Russian conspracy.)
The bulk of the U.S. ruled population, in its many varied groups, has been becoming fed up with both halves of the established ruling class and the bureaucracy and "intelligence" agencies (what is now being called the "deep state"). If you think they're oppressing you, what do you think they're doing to us? (They just need their cattle happy and confused enough to not stampede and be milked until slaughter, to keep them in resources.)
That was a big driver behind Trump's out-of-apparently-nowhere election - against the quintessential instance of a corrupt establishment's chieftain. It was the biggest - for many of us the only - pry-bar we could apply.
What do you expect us to do? Levitate the Pentagon? Attack the spooks with guns and butter?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
A Deplorable manages to create logic that allows said Deplorable, to dismiss Russian hacking and collusion. For the billionth time.
And you people loudly call yourselves patriots. The Republicans have sold their souls to the Devil for 40 pieces of silver. Let's see, there was a historical figure who did this too... the name Judas comes to mind... Whatever happened to Judas?
"Conservative Think-Tanks'
Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
It's just the way we speak of it, just like many Americans and all of your propaganda outlets say "China this" or "Russia that". We all understand the blame is with the government. There is a difference however, in that you Americans have, on the whole, a stronger dislike, fear and hatred of foreigners and foreign countries, than other people in the world have.
Putin needs to be banned from all financial markets. His accounts emptied. His assets seized and sold off. Cyrus needs to be crushed, and their banks ended.
Yup, sounds aboot right.
GIANT smoke screen to divert attention away from the exploitation of the Citizens United decision. The real evil is equating money to free speech. I look at my bills and all they say is "In God We Trust"
So here's the thing, I will believe that this was a real problem or caused any change in the vote if you can find me a single conservative that ever, in a million years, even considered voting for Hillary Clinton. Were their propaganda campaigns? Sure ... Did they sway voters that were rabid about Hilary to vote for Trump or vice versa, not a chance. They didn't even sway me, in the middle from voting for a third party candidate, which was my intention all along. The crowds voting for these people are so ideologically opposed to one another's general philosophy, that there was no chance that this changed the outcome of our election.
And you won't get so many scammers, so much corruption, so much wastage. Ugh.
US "public discourse" indeed uses country names as trigger for hatred. e.g. : Iran. Venezuela.
You might construct sentences with that. "Iran! Iran. Venezuela, Iraq. Iraq Russia China. China North Korea China. China Russia."
They are far from being the only country in the world where that happens, though. In North Korea they have the same view of Japan as they had 100 years ago.
Conservative think tank? That's funny
As far as the Russians go, when have they ever been friends of the US
Wait, wait - you're saying that Russian griefers posting lies on twitter and facebook is the exact same thing as the Russian government controlling the US government?
Wow. You're really bought the whole package, haven't you!
Personally I voted for the nice Jewish Doctor Lady, who, having demonstrated intelligence equivalent to a brain damaged cocker spaniel, was obviously the most intelligent candidate running.
> the attackers used multiple Microsoft services and products when setting up 4 of the 6 domains. My guess is that Microsoft was able to identify the attackers based on the collective information used when setting up the domains and websites.
That, and if the site is on Microsoft infrastructure, MS can see that the submit.asp script sends the logins to bortnikov@fsb.gov.ru or some GRU endpoint. That's a pretty good hint too. :)
Not only how they were set up, using which accounts, from where, but also how the sites operated. Also who they targeted, etc. Those think tanks aren't the top conservative think tanks. If anyone else attacked those two before, it's probably the same people. Other attackers would more likely go after the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute ...
You don't need to worry about Russian's interfering with the mid-term elections, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram are all doing that domestically themselves by continuing to censor Republican candidates.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
The day will come when you screw up a web site password and a little voice will come over your PC speaker, "That's your luggage combination."
Have gnu, will travel.
Looking at the range of things the Russians are said to have done, and theories as to why, has anyone read a good analysis of this possibility: The Russian effort was probing the American electorate, to make our political reaction to events and trends more predictable. As an effort to influence, it seemed amateurish and ineffective. As a research effort, rather credible.
can someone actually give me concrete proof that anything russia does actually does in fact affect america? i don't care about email hacks, i mean actual proof that something they do makes america say "oh i want to vote xyz"
It couldn't be the giant tax bill I got for not having obummercare (which I can't afford) and all of the other horrible things that bastard did in office. Nope. It couldn't possibly be that the democrats hurt millions of middle class Americans. Nope. It must be the Russians.
Microsoft support calling because they have detected a problem with your computer is legendary for criminals. So if Microsoft called me up at a conservative think (or any place else) tank, I'd be like - sure you are... I'm sure you work for Microsoft. Click.
Besides, I thought the Russians were somehow against the Democrats, even though they're in bed together.