[ad_1]
Those cyberattacks also included an attempt to disrupt Ukraine’s power grid, US Deputy Attorney General John Demers said at a press conference.
The six GRU agents are also accused of carrying out a malicious attack using the ransom-plagued NotPetya virus, which has infected computers around the world. The damage caused by the attack to just three US companies is estimated at nearly $ 1 billion. Dollars
GRU agents are also suspected of trying to attack international investigations into the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a nerve paralyzing substance. Other cyberattacks related to the case targeted the media and the Sakartwell parliament.
Assistant US Attorney General John Demers said the six were responsible for “the most damaging and damaging cyber attacks ever assigned to a group.”
Demers said the same GRU unit had previously been charged with attempting to disrupt the 2016 U.S. elections, but the latest indictment “has no charges of interfering in [2020 metų] elections “.
The charges against six people, none of whom have been arrested in the United States, were brought before the federal Grand Jury in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where NotPetya was reportedly beaten in hospitals.
The allegations include conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, damage to protected computers and aggravated identity theft.
According to Demers, in December 2015 and December 2016, the defendants staged cyberattacks that severely disrupted the operation of Ukraine’s power grids.
“This is the first time that devastating malware attacks have been reported against critical civil infrastructure management systems,” the official said.
“These attacks turned off the lights and heating in the middle of winter in Eastern Europe, when the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian women, men and children turned dark and cold,” Demers said.
“Spoiled child”
The Justice Department added that GRU agents in the run-up to the 2017 elections in France were trying to steal the data and leak it to the detriment of President Emmanuel Macron’s party and local authorities.
Demers said hackers became the target of the 2018 Pyongyang Winter Olympics in South Korea in 2018, when Russian athletes were not allowed to compete with their flag there after investigators found a program of government sponsored doping.
“Their cyberattack combined the emotional maturity of the spoiled child with the resources available to the state,” said the US Deputy Attorney General, adding that the organizers of the attacks were trying to give the impression that they were welcomed by Korea. North.
“During the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, they launched the Olympic Destroyer malware attack, wiping data from thousands of computers running the Games and rendering them unusable,” Demers said.
The NotPetya attacks of 2017 targeted businesses and critical infrastructure around the world. In the United States, hospitals, one of FedEx’s subsidiaries and pharmaceutical companies, have targeted the attack.
In April of the following year, attacks were launched using specially crafted fraudulent emails targeting the Scrapie poisoning investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the British Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL).
In 2018, a large media company became the target of a cyber attack of a similar nature. In addition, attempts were made in 2019 to disrupt the computer network of the country’s parliament, the Justice Department said.
The indictment names six suspects: Yuri Sergeyevich Andrijenka, 32, Sergei Vladimirovich Detistov, 35, Pavel Valerevich Frolov, 28, Anatoly Sergeyevich Kovalev, 29, Artiom Valerevich Ochichenko, 27, and Nikolayev, 32. years.
In 2018, ASKovaliov was accused of attempting to break into computers related to the administration of the 2016 US elections.
[ad_2]
