Six Russian military officers charged for cyber attacks

 Six Russian military officers have recently been charged in a hacking scheme to attack several major foreign powers, former Soviet republics and subvert investigations into nefarious activities by the Kremlin.

Prosecutors said they attacked Ukraine, the country of Georgia, and the French elections. The six are also being held accountable for Russia’s efforts to use of a weapons-grade nerve agent, Novichok, on foreign soil among other things. This was due to Russian athletes being banned after participating under their nation’s flag, as a consequence of Russian government-sponsored doping effort.

These alleged cyber attackers hacked into software using destructive malware to black out thousands of computers and cause nearly $1 billion in losses, and were intended to support Russian government efforts to undermine, retaliate against, or otherwise destabilize worldwide computer networks, claimed the Justice Department.

Interestingly, Britain has also accused Russia’s military intelligence service of carrying out cyberattacks on officials and organizations involved in planning the 2020 Olympic games.

The United Kingdom accused the GRU of targeting the “organisers, logistics services, and sponsors” of the games. The 2020 competition was scheduled to take place in Tokyo in July but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

UK’s  Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab condemned the GRU’s actions in the “strongest possible terms,” calling the unit “cynical and reckless,” in a statement published on Monday.

The statement also accused the Russian body of targeting the 2018 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in South Korea with cyberattacks.

“The UK is confirming for the first time today the extent of GRU targeting of the 2018 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Pyeong Chang, Republic of Korea,” the government statement said.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has assessed the attacks and believes they were intended to sabotage the games, as the malware used “was designed to wipe data from and disable computers and networks.”