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AP
US Deputy Attorney General John Demers displayed a poster identifying the six Russian military intelligence officers the Justice Department has accused of hacking.
GCSB Minister Andrew Little says he was surprised that the US Department of Justice gave New Zealand a special mention after a federal jury indicted six Russian spies for a series of hacking crimes across the world.
Little said he had been informed in advance of the allegations, but did not know what assistance the United States was referring to.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) accused the six Russians of being behind “some of the most destructive malicious programs in the world,” including the NotPetya ransomware attacks in 2017.
Those attacks crippled the operations of companies around the world, including the New Zealand division of the Danish shipping company Moller-Maersk.
The Justice Department singled out New Zealand from a small group of countries that it acknowledged assisting in their investigations in a statement announcing the allegations.
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He thanked the “Ukrainian authorities, the governments of the Republic of Korea and New Zealand, the Georgian authorities and the UK intelligence services” as well as other unidentified foreign agencies.
Little said the government had been told in advance that the Justice Department would make an announcement, but “it was not expected that there would be a reference to New Zealand.”
“To be honest, it is not very clear what that reference refers to,” he said. “They have not given me any advice or information on what it could be.
“There are a number of state agencies in New Zealand that deal with cybercrime and cyber problems; the GCSB and also the police and other agencies, ”he said.
John Bisset / Stuff
Moller-Maersk’s New Zealand subsidiary was one of the companies that the NotPetya malware took offline in 2017.
The reference to New Zealand had come as a surprise in the context in which it was made, he said.
“Very few countries were named and many countries cooperate on these kinds of issues.
“As I understand it, some questions have been asked as to what exactly that reference refers to, but I have not heard anything at this time,” he said.
The Justice Department said that Russian hackers participated in attacks aimed at supporting the Russian government’s efforts to “undermine, retaliate, or destabilize” Ukraine, Georgia, the elections in France, and efforts to hold Russia accountable for the use of a weapon-grade nerve agent. Novichok, abroad.
He said the defendant also tried to disrupt the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics after Russian athletes were banned from participation due to a “government-sponsored doping effort.”
The NotPetya attacks caused nearly $ 1 billion (NZ $ 1.5 billion) in losses for just three of its victims, it said.
Little said he had no information to suggest that the Russian group could have been behind the recent denial of service attacks on the NZX.
There was also no information in the Justice Department statement to suggest that the six defendants are not yet in Russia, or that they are likely to be detained.
US Deputy Attorney General John Demers said that no country had armed its cyber capabilities “as maliciously or irresponsibly as Russia, rampant causing unprecedented damage to pursue small tactical advantages and satisfy outbursts of spite.”
Today, the department has accused these Russian officers of carrying out the most destructive and destructive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group, including the triggering of the NotPetya malware.
“No nation will regain greatness if it behaves in this way,” he added.
MARTIN DE RUYTER / THINGS
GCSB Minister Andrew Little has been briefed on the allegations.
The GCSB in 2018 took the rare step of directly naming Russia as involved in state-sponsored hacks that impacted New Zealand.
Hampton said at the time that there were indications that “the Russian state and state-sponsored actors” were behind some of the 122 serious incidents identified in a GCSB annual report that had “indicators of connection to foreign intelligence agencies.”
“Such behavior is unacceptable, it is contrary to New Zealand’s vision of an open, safe and secure cyberspace,” he said at the time.
Little said that “it is always disappointing to see state-backed operators looking for vulnerabilities to cause damage and disruption.”
“It would not be the first time an accusation has been made against Russia and I doubt it will be the last,” he said.
