DHS, FBI release joint report on Russian cyber activity

,DHS, FBI release joint report on Russian cyber activity, Washington Examiner, Gabby Morrongiello, December 29, 2016

(A thirteen page PDF “Joint Analysis” is available at the link. — DM)

A joint report released Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security and FBI has shed light on how federal investigators concluded that Russia was behind the hacking of Democratic political institutions in the presidential election.

Without mentioning either by name, the 13-page document illustrates how Russian civilian and military actors compromised the Democratic National Committee’s internal communications network and hacked thousands of emails sent and received by Hillary Clinton‘s campaign chairman, John Podesta, as well as other “U.S. government, political and private sector entitites.”

“These cyber operations have included spearphishing campaigns, targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure entities, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations leading to the theft of information,” states the report.

The report was released just hours before the White House imposed a series of new sanctions on Russian officials and institutions as part of its pledge to retaliate against Moscow for interfering in the 2016 election. It is separate from the “full review” of Russia’s hack-and-release operations President Obama requested earlier this month.

According to the report, the Democratic party appears to have been the victim of a spearphishing campaign in which hundreds of employees were tricked “into changing their passwords through a fake webmail domain” hosted by Russian hackers.

Though U.S. intelligence officials insists the hacks were perpetrated by the Russian government, President-elect Trump has refused to accept such findings as fact.

“I think we ought to get on with our lives,” Trump told reporters late Wednesday when asked about the Obama administration’s plan to level sanctions against Russia for the election-year hacks.

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2 Comments on “DHS, FBI release joint report on Russian cyber activity”

danmillerinpanama Says:

December 29, 2016 at 11:57 PM
According to an analysis of the PDF summary provided here,

The “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity – Joint Analysis Report” (full pdf below) is pure nonsense. It outlines nothing more than vague and disingenuous typical hacking activity that is no more substantive than any other hacking report on any other foreign actor.

This might as well be a report blaming Nigerian fraud phone solicitors for targeting U.S. phone numbers. DUH! Just because your grandma didn’t actually win that Nigerian national lottery doesn’t mean the Nigerian Mafioso are targeting your employer to hold you accountable for her portion of the bill.

This FBI report is, well, quite simply, pure horse-pucky.

However, what the report does well is using ridiculous technical terminology to describe innocuous common activity. Example: “ATPT29” is Olaf, the round faced chubby guy probably working from his kitchen table; and “ATPT28” is his unemployed socially isolated buddy living in Mom’s basement down the street.

This paragraph is priceless in it’s humorous and disengenuous gobblespeak:

Both groups have historically targeted government organizations, think tanks, universities, and corporations around the world. APT29 has been observed crafting targeted spearphishing campaigns leveraging web links to a malicious dropper; once executed, the code delivers Remote Access Tools (RATs) and evades detection using a range of techniques.

APT28 is known for leveraging domains that closely mimic those of targeted organizations and tricking potential victims into entering legitimate credentials. APT28 actors relied heavily on shortened URLs in their spearphishing email campaigns. Once APT28 and APT29 have access to victims, both groups exfiltrate and analyze information to gain intelligence value.

These groups use this information to craft highly targeted spearphishing campaigns. These actors set up operational infrastructure to obfuscate their source infrastructure, host domains and malware for targeting organizations, establish command and control nodes, and harvest credentials and other valuable information from their targets.

(*note the emphasis I placed in the quote) All that nonsense is saying is a general explanation for how hacking, any hacking, is generally carried out. This entire FBI report is nothing more than a generalized, albeit techno-worded, explanation for how Nigerians, Indians, or in this case Russians, attempt to gain your email passwords etc., nothing more.

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Hadenoughalready Says:

December 30, 2016 at 1:26 AM
Once again we crucify the messenger instead of those who WROTE THE MESSAGE.

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WarSclerotic