Tag Archive for: russian

Russian Intelligence Agencies Relying on ‘Bruce Force’ to Hack America

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Recently, the U.S. and British intelligence communities issued an advisory uncovering the “Brute Force” cyber techniques used by the Russian GRU intelligence agency against hundreds of Western government and private targets. These revelations come in the wake of months of successive cyberattacks against American and European targets, including the SolarWinds, which saw Russian and Chinese hackers gain access to U.S. government systems, and Colonial Pipeline, which interfered with the flow of fuel on America’s East Coast this past May.

According to the Intelligence Community, the GRU cyberattacks started from the middle of 2019 and are likely still ongoing, with the GRU’s 85th Main Special Service Center (GTsSS) unit 26165 identified as the main perpetrator behind the attacks. The goal of this cyber warfare campaign is to access protected and classified databases in order to purloin information, but also to pave the way for future breaches.  

The advisory is a joint product of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the U.K.’s signals intelligence agency. 

Related: America needs new covert options for Great Power Competition

KGB Reloaded: Russian Intelligence

The Russian intelligence apparatus is composed of four main agencies.

The SVR (Sluzhba vneshney razvedki Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the external intelligence agency that focuses on foreign intelligence collection and is often compared to America’s CIA. While not entirely accurate, the comparison is somewhat apt.

The FSB (Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the internal security and counterintelligence service that focuses on domestic intelligence, and is roughly the equivalent of America’s FBI.

The GRU (Glavnoje Razvedyvatel’noje Upravlenije) is the military foreign intelligence service that commands the Spetsnaz special operations units and a very rough equivalent of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

Finally, the FSO (Federalnaya sluzhba okhrany) protects the Russian president but also…

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International Space Station stabilizes after just-docked Russian module suddenly fires thrusters • The Register

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The International Space Station tilted 45 degrees today after Nauka, a just-docked Russian module, suddenly and unexpectedly fired its thrusters.

The launch of Nauka, also known as the Multipurpose Laboratory Module, did not go smoothly. Engine troubles and dodgy docking sensors meant that the vehicle did not rendezvous with the orbiting lab until today. It blasted off atop a Proton-M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan eight days earlier.

Even after the vehicle finally managed to dock, problems did not stop there. Within hours of it attaching itself to the space station, its engines began aimlessly firing. The generated thrust caused the whole space station to lose attitude control, according to NASA:

“The crew is not in any danger, never was in any danger, and attitude control has been regained,” NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said about an hour after the thrusters briefly fired at around 1645 GMT. Communications between ground and the station were lost for 11 minutes during the burn, which was at one point declared a “spacecraft emergency” by NASA officials.

Indeed, we’re told none of the seven astronauts on board the station were harmed during the scare. The crew right now is made up of cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov, who were in the Zvezda module connected to Nauka at the time; Akihiko Hoshide from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency; and NASA’s Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, and Mark Vande Hei.

According to the American space agency, the low-Earth-orbit station automatically detected that the Nauka module was in error, and used its own thrusters, including those on the Zvezda unit, to correct its orientation. It’s not clear what caused Nauka to malfunction, and Russian officials sent commands to the…

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Russian ‘Spam King’ Spared Further Prison Time in Botnet Case

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July 20, 2021, 8:42 PM

A Russian hacker who was once labeled one of the world’s most notorious spammers was spared additional prison time by a federal judge in Connecticut.

Peter Levashov, 40, was sentenced to time served on Tuesday during a remote proceeding before U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny in Hartford. The St. Petersburg native, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to stealing personal information and passwords from thousands of hijacked computers he used to distribute spam emails pushing fake drugs and scam investments, has been in U.S. custody for 4 1/2 years already.

Levashov had asked Chatigny to spare him from additional prison time, …

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Russian Defense Ministry website targeted by foreign cyberattack

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Russia’s Defense Ministry was targeted by a DDoS cyberattack conducted by a foreign source on Friday, according to the Russian TASS news agency.

“The official website of the Russian Ministry of Defense on the Internet was subjected to a DDoS attack, as a result of which some users may experience difficulties in accessing its content,” the ministry said, according to TASS.

The ministry added that the source of the attack came from outside Russia. The site has been restored.

The computer security service of the Defense Ministry stated that “No violations in the operability of the software and technical infrastructure of the website of the Russian Defense Ministry have been allowed.”

US President Joe Biden recently warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that the US would take “any necessary action” to stop cyberattacks from Russia, after a series of cyberattacks from within Russia territory targeted US companies.

Biden told reporters that he “made it very clear to him that the United States expects when a ransomware operation is coming from his soil, even though it’s not sponsored by the state, we expect them to act if we give them enough information to act on who that is,” according to the BBC.

The Kremlin denied that the US has contacted Russia about cyberattacks, saying that Russia is ready to “jointly clamp down on criminal activity in the informational sphere.”

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