The U.S. governing administration on Tuesday declared up to $10 million in benefits for facts on six hackers linked with the Russian navy intelligence company.
“These individuals participated in malicious cyber activities on behalf of the Russian federal government from U.S. critical infrastructure in violation of the Pc Fraud and Abuse Act,” the State Department’s Benefits for Justice Program stated.
All the six Russian officers are associates of an innovative persistent danger team termed Sandworm (aka Voodoo Bear or Iron Viking), which is regarded to be running considering that at minimum 2008 with a unique emphasis on targeting entities in Ukraine with the goal of establishing an illicit, extended-term existence in order to mine hugely sensitive information.
The hacker, who are officers of the Key Intelligence Directorate of the Normal Staff members of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU), are as follows –
- Artem Valeryevich Ochichenko, who has been linked to technical reconnaissance and spear-phishing campaigns to attain unauthorized obtain to IT networks of critical infrastructure facilities worldwide
- Petr Nikolayevich Pliskin, Sergey Vladimirovich Detistov, Pavel Valeryevich Frolov, and Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko, who are reported to have produced components of the NotPetya and Olympic Destroyer malware utilized by the Russian government on June 27, 2017 to infect laptop units, and
- Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, who is accused of producing spear-phishing approaches and messages applied by the Russian federal government to breach laptop or computer methods of critical infrastructure amenities
On October 15, 2020, the U.S. Justice Section indicted the aforementioned officers for carrying out destructive malware assaults with an goal to disrupt and destabilize other nations and cause financial losses, charging them with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
As section of the initiative, the Benefits of Justice has set up a Tor web-site at “he5dybnt7sr6cm32xt77pazmtm65flqy6irivtflruqfc5ep7eiodiad[.]onion” that can be made use of to submit ideas about these menace actors anonymously, or alternatively share the information by way of Sign, Telegram, or WhatsApp.
The Sandworm collective was most a short while ago attributed to a now-neutralized advanced botnet malware dubbed Cyclops Blink that ensnared internet-linked firewall equipment and routers from WatchGuard and ASUS.
Other new hacking pursuits associated with the group include the deployment of an upgraded model of the Industroyer malware against superior-voltage electrical substations in Ukraine amidst the ongoing invasion.
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Some parts of this article are sourced from:
thehackernews.com