American media reported that the attacks could have been organized by Moscow.
Russian hackers are accused in the United States of gaining unauthorized access to White House information – unclassified but “sensitive”: about the schedule of US President Barack Obama, including non-public. U.S. media reported that Russian authorities may be behind the attacks.
CNN claims, citing sources, that the hackers had access to real-time information about the American president’s work schedule. Despite the fact that this information is not classified, according to the sources, it is “sensitive” information, which is extremely curious for intelligence services of foreign countries.
According to the broadcaster, the FBI and US intelligence agencies are currently investigating. They believe that the attackers initially gained access to the mail server of the U.S. State Department, and through it penetrated the White House, and it was “one of the most sophisticated attacks” of hackers that Washington has ever dealt with. The hackers reportedly logged in from computers located around the world, but used specific codes that helped them recognize Russian nationals.
U.S. officials have not confirmed that the cyberattacks were organized by Moscow and have dodged reporters’ questions on the matter. White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes acknowledged that U.S. agencies are dealing with hacking attacks, but did not go into details. He also assured that the hackers could not have had access to classified US information. “We have different systems: unclassified, classified and super-secret. We don’t think the classified system was compromised,” Mr. Rhodes said.
White House National Security Council spokesman Mark Straw, commenting on the reports of Russian hackers, said that Washington takes the cyber threat seriously. However, this is not news: just the other day U.S. President Barack Obama signed a law that provides for the possibility of imposing economic sanctions against the organizers of cyberattacks on the U.S. around the world.
Mr. Stroh also clarified that the report about hacker attacks is not about any new incident, but about some “suspicious activity” that took place last year. The official did not elaborate on what specific suspicious activity was in question, nor which country was involved in the incident.
The White House, the State Department and the Russian embassy in Washington did not comment to Kommersant on reports of Russia’s involvement in the hacking attacks on the White House and their possible consequences. The FBI also refrained from commenting.
Meanwhile, last October, FireEye, a company specializing in cybersecurity in the United States, published a report titled “ART28: A Window into Russian Cyber Espionage?”.
The abbreviation ART (Advanced Persistent Threat) means “advanced persistent threat” in Russian: this is how the report refers to a group of Russian hackers who, according to some reports, have been operating since 2007. At the same time, the authors note that the attackers are not interested in personal enrichment, but mainly in military and geopolitical issues. In particular, the situation in Georgia, as well as information about NATO, the OSCE, the work of non-governmental organizations in the Caucasus, and correspondence of military attachés. The focus of the hackers’ activities allowed the authors of the report to conclude that the Russian government was behind them.
FireEye spokesman Kirksen Storer, however, assured Kommersant that the report and the current reports about Russian hackers infiltrating the White House have nothing in common. “The report has nothing to do with ‘hacking’ from the White House,” he said.
In addition, Mr. Storer believes it is wrong to exaggerate the significance of the exclusively Russian cyber threat in the United States. “The threat comes not only from China, North Korea and Russia, we also see a threat from Iran and Syria. We are not talking about only three states,” the expert said.
The opinion that Russian hackers are not the most dangerous for the United States is also held by New York Lawyer Bukh Arkady Bukh. He previously represented defendants accused of cybercrimes, and now he has decided to open a company to defend against cyber threats. “I’ve talked to some clients – Russian hackers who hacked into the websites of American agencies just for fun,” Mr. Bukh said. He is convinced that the protection of government sites in the U.S. is insufficient because “security costs an insane amount of money, and there is no such budget. As for Russian hackers, the lawyer believes that they are mostly trying to hack American banks, not government agencies. “The most dangerous hackers for the U.S. are Chinese, as they try to steal industrial secrets,” Mr. Bukh is convinced.
Source: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2703954