Macron campaign team used honeypot accounts to fake out Fancy Bear
Digital team filled fake accounts with garbage data to slow information operation. Continue reading Macron campaign team used honeypot accounts to fake out Fancy Bear
Category Archives: APT28
Microsoft Plugs Three Zero Day Holes as Part of May Patch Tuesday
Microsoft patched three zero day vulnerabilities actively under attack today as part of its May Patch Tuesday release. Continue reading Microsoft Plugs Three Zero Day Holes as Part of May Patch Tuesday
Hacking against France’s Macron previews dangers for other major European elections
Last week’s “massive and coordinated hack” against the campaign of French President-elect Emmanuel Macron was the opening act in a year slated with critical European elections that will help decide the fate of the EU. The incident was, for about 24 hours, a hold-your-breath moment for Macron’s campaign. By Sunday night, the centrist candidate handily won, taking more than 66 percent of the vote over far-right-wing rival Marine Le Pen. Le Pen’s global array of opponents exhaled. But any reprieve for election systems’ cyber-defenders is destined to be brief. The United Kingdom, Germany and France are readying themselves for further elections and similar potential attacks. Experts have noted close similarities between this week’s leaked emails and hacks against American political targets in 2016 that were blamed widely on Russian intelligence agencies. While most experts say it’s too early yet to definitively attribute these latest attacks to any specific group, many expect the coming year to be […]
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Evidence suggests Russia behind hack of French presidential candidate
Russian security firms’ metadata found in files, according to WikiLeaks and others. Continue reading Evidence suggests Russia behind hack of French presidential candidate
French presidential candidate Macron suffers ‘massive and coordinated hack’
The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was targeted by a “massive and coordinated hack,” according to a statement from the campaign late Friday. A large collection totaling nine gigabytes of emails purportedly from the campaign was posted online less than two days before the country’s election in which Macron faces off against Marine Le Pen. Macron, who has accused Russia of cyberattacks against his campaign in the past, was targeted this year by the hacking group Fancy Bear, according to the cybersecurity firm Trend Micro. Fancy Bear has widely been linked to Russian intelligence operations and is one of the groups that hacked into U.S. political institutions including the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. Macron’s political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) confirmed that it had been hacked, according to Reuters. “The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and coordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the […]
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Congress’ new spending bill includes $100M to counter Russian information operations
At least $100 million in funding specifically to counter Russian information operations will be available under a newly unveiled spending bill to keep the U.S. government running until the end of September. Dubbed the “Countering Russian Influence Fund,” the new initiative is designed to provide support to “civil society organizations and other entities” based in Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia. The inclusion of the provision comes just one day after President Trump once again downplayed the impact of Russian information operations on the 2016 presidential election during a nationally televised interview with CBS News. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a historic, declassified report in January accusing Russian intelligence services of hacking into the Democratic National Committee and email mailbox of top political strategist John Podesta in an effort to leak confidential messages that would discredit Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Congress must send the spending bill to Trump for his signature […]
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This Is the Evidence Linking Russian Hackers to the French Election
As France braces for the second round of its election, security researchers try to figure out if Russia was really behind the alleged hacking attempts against frontrunner Emmanuel Macron. Continue reading This Is the Evidence Linking Russian Hackers to the French Election
Russian hackers heavily targeted news outlet in days before U.S. election, researchers say
Hackers working for the Russian government sent a barrage of targeted phishing emails between 2014 and 2016 to employees of major news outlets, and they focused particularly on Al Jazeera in the days before and shortly following the U.S. presidential election, according to new research by cybersecurity firm Trend Micro. It’s unclear exactly why the elite team of hackers — known as APT-28, Fancy Bear or Pawn Storm — focused so heavily on the Qatar-based, state-funded global broadcaster during that short window. Like other news agencies targeted over the longer two-year span, including the New York Times and Buzzfeed, the award-winning outlet covered the election in detail and dedicated a section of its website to election-night coverage. Trend Micro’s Forward-looking Threat Research, or FTR, team said staff at Al Jazeera were repeatedly sent phishing emails with deceptive links, including “account-aljazeera.net” and “sset-aljazeera.net.” The subject line for some emails sent by the hacking […]
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Russian Hackers ‘Fancy Bear’ Targeted French Presidential Candidate Macron
The hacking group who attacked the DNC and was behind the Podesta leaks also went after France’s Presidential frontrunner. Continue reading Russian Hackers ‘Fancy Bear’ Targeted French Presidential Candidate Macron
‘Amateurish’ espionage campaign launched with leaked Hacking Team tools
A mysterious group appears to be relying on hacking tools that were originally stolen from Italian surveillance company Hacking Team — and leaked online two years ago — to spy on European government officials, think tanks and journalists, according to new research published Thursday by cybersecurity firm F-Secure. Dubbed the “Callisto Group,” the hackers were first discovered by F-Secure after they sent a wave of phishing emails to a wide array of different targets that were all similarly involved in either discussing or reporting on government policies related to foreign affairs and national security. The BBC reported Thursday that one of those targets was the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Several F-Secure contacts received the suspicious phishing emails and sent samples to the Finnish company. The final payload for the malware-laden attachments contained, according to F-Secure, an outdated variant of the Hacking Team’s “Scout” tool, which is typically sold as part […]
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