Russian GRU Unit Tied to Assassinations Linked to Global Cyber Sabotage and Espionage

A secretive Russian military unit, previously linked to assassinations and destabilization in Europe, is blamed for destructive wiper malware attacks in Ukraine.
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Russian GRU Unit Tied to Assassinations Now Linked to Global Cyber Sabotage and Espionage

A secretive Russian military unit, previously linked to assassinations and destabilization in Europe, is blamed for destructive wiper malware attacks in Ukraine.
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U.S. charges five Russian military members for destructive cyber ops, hack-and-leak campaigns

The hackers were working with a unit in the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, according to the DOJ.

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US Announces Charges, Reward for Russian National Behind Wiper Attacks on Ukraine

The US Justice Department has announced charges against Amin Stigal for conducting wiper cyberattacks on Ukraine in 2022.
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Microsoft Outs New Russian APT Linked to Wiper Attacks in Ukraine

Microsoft is publicly exposing a Russian hacking group that worked on destructive wiper malware attacks that hit organizations in Ukraine.
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UK, EU, US formally blame Russia for Viasat satellite hack before Ukraine invasion

The British statement cites joint U.K./U.S. intelligence, representing the most formal U.S. attribution to date.

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Another round of ‘wiper’ malware appears in Ukrainian networks

Security researchers detected new destructive malware spreading in Ukraine on Wednesday, following evidence of distributed denial-of-service disruptions for government agencies — both of which overlapped with the beginnings of a Russian invasion. ESET said the data-wiping malware was “installed on hundreds of machines in the country,” and there were signs that the attackers had been preparing for almost two months. Silas Cutler, principle reverse engineer and resident hacker at Stairwell, said that the wiper damages a system’s master boot record, which tells a machine how to start up. That’s similar to malware known as WhisperGate that was used in an attack in January in Ukraine. Symantec, too, observed the wiper in action, and confirmed to CyberScoop that it has seen it in Latvia as well. Juan-Andres Guerrero-Saade, principal threat researcher at SentinelOne, said the wiper appeared to be more dangerous than the malware uncovered in January. None of the researchers […]

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Belarusian hacktivist group attacks Belarusian Railways as military frictions mount

A group of Belarusian hackers claim to have encrypted the servers, databases and workstations of Belarusian Railways with the aim of slowing down Russian troop movements as tensions continue to mount toward a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Belarus Cyber Partisans — a group of pro-democracy hacktivists who have been targeting the Russia-friendly Belarusian government with a series of hack-and-leak operations aimed to expose government corruption — tweeted mid-morning Monday U.S. time that they’d “encrypted some of BR’s servers, databases and workstations to disrupt operations.” They demanded the release of 50 political prisoners they say are the most in need of medical attention want Russian troops to stay out of their country. Franak Viacorka, an adviser to a Belarusian human rights advocate, tweeted screenshots purporting to show access to the railway company’s servers. Additional screenshots of the data were posted by the Cyber Partisans’ Telegram account. We have encryption […]

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Cyberattacks on Ukrainian websites come into clearer focus as Russia tensions escalate

Cybersecurity researchers shed additional light over the weekend on the cyberattacks that disabled Ukrainian government websites, as Kyiv pointed to Russia as the culprit. Microsoft and ESET both shared details on the nature of the malware that took the Ukrainian sites down. Microsoft “assesses that the malware, which is designed to look like ransomware but lacking a ransom recovery mechanism, is intended to be destructive and designed to render targeted devices inoperable rather than to obtain a ransom,” the company wrote in a blog post Saturday. However, Microsoft said it couldn’t yet attribute who was behind the malware, labeled WhisperGate. The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency recommended that network defenders review the Microsoft blog post, suggesting the possibility that the attacks could spread to include other targets. ESET on Sunday elaborated further, saying that the malware the attackers contained code “commonly used by commodity e-crime malware.” “It […]

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