BREAKING —The US Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted today 12 Russian intelligence agents on hacking charges related to the 2016 US Presidential Election.
According to a copy of the indictment obtained by Bleeping Computer, the 12 accused are part of Unit 26165 and Unit 74455 of the Russian government's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), the country's military intelligence service.
Group accused of infamous DNC hack
The DOJ claims the group is responsible for hacking the computer systems of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), in 2016, ahead of the US Presidential Election. The group also actively targeted and hacked individual members part of the Clinton Campaign, the DOJ said.
The indictment claims the group used spear-phishing to penetrate DCCC and DNC networks and the email accounts of lone individuals, where they deployed the X-Agent malware that capable of recording keystrokes, stealing files, or taking screenshots. The indictment also mentions the use of the X-Tunnel malware that was used to securely steal data from infected servers and individuals.
Investigators say the group first hacked the DCCC where they compromised an individual who also had credentials for accessing the DNC network, and used those to gain access to DNC servers.
DOJ claim Russian agents were behind Guccifer 2.0 persona
US officials claim the group set up the DCLeaks.com website on which they leaked files they stole from the DCCC, DNC, and from other compromised individuals.
Furthermore, the group also stands accused of creating the Guccifer 2.0 lone-hacker persona through which they tried to claim responsibility for the DNC hack, and through which they released files stolen from the organization.
The group actively tried to hide their identity by claiming they were American hackers (DCLeaks.com operation) or a lone Romanian hacker (Guccifer 2.0) through the use of public Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress.com accounts.
"After public accusations that the Russian government was behind the hacking of DNC and DCCC computers, defendants created the fictitious persona Guccifer 2.0," the DOJ says. "On the evening of June 15, 2016 between 4:19PM and 4:56PM, defendants used their Moscow-based server to search for a series of English words and phrases that later appeared in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post falsely claiming to be a lone Romanian hacker responsible for the hacks in the hopes of undermining the allegations of Russian involvement."
The accused also used a network of proxies and servers across the globe, for which they paid with cryptocurrency to keep their anonymity.
The DOJ also accused the 12 suspects of conspiring to hack into the computers of state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and US companies that produced software used by states for administering elections.
US officials said the 12 often conversed with US citizens, but investigators said they don't believe the US citizens knew they were speaking with Russian intelligence agents, hence they did not file any charges for the time being. The investigation also didn't find any evidence votes were changed.
Announcement made before key Putin-Trump meeting
The announcement comes just days before President Trump's planned meeting with his Russian counterpart, President Putin, scheduled for Monday, July 16.
At the time of the indictment's announcement, all 12 GRU officers are still at large and believed to be located in Russia.
The names of the accused are Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, Boris Alekseyevich Antonov, Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov, Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev, Sergey Aleksandrovich Morgachev, Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek, Pavel Vyacheslavovich Yershov, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev, Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk, Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin, and Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev.
Updated graph made to map the #MuellerIndictment on #Unit74455 & #Unit26165 about #RussianHacking operations against #DNC & #DCCC
— SwitHak (@SwitHak) July 15, 2018
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Comments
buddy215 - 5 years ago
The "Stable Genius" said he wasn't president when that happened. Imagine that...you just can't make this stuff up. Really, that was his response to the indictments.
herbman - 5 years ago
Wait a minute LOL, Buddy are you telling me you actually believe these 12 indictments are legit ? Buddy my friend work on developing a clue , not a single one will ever face justice everybody knows that .
Do you know how many countries hacked Clinton's e mails , dozens , Mueller could of indicted dozens of people from many different countries .
He only decided to indict Russians to keep the exceptionally stupid convinced that Russians were responsible.
It's already been proven that the hack came from a DNC insider on the east coast and the documents downloaded were downloaded at a speed considerably faster than most outside sources were capable of reaching at that time .
Seth Rich is the one responsible for the leaks and anyone with an IQ equaling that of at least a Poptart knows that.
This who Russia BS is just that, BS , it is the what the FBI referred to as their "Insurance policy" in case Trump won remember ?
The 3 people solely responsible for coming up with the Russia story and having the communist media run with it are Podesta, Clinton and Robbie Mook .
Now if you have never heard of any of this thats understandable , anybody that believes a word the main stream media have to say won't have a clue , the media covers up everything and i mean everything .
NickAu - 5 years ago
Quote
" not a single one will ever face justice everybody knows that ."
While that is true I would hate to be in these guys shoes. We now know what they did, how they did it and even what they look like thanks to the Dutch, these guys will never be allowed to leave Russia so they can write a book or sell their story,
They are blown, expect to see their names in Russian news paper obituary sections soon.
JohnnyJammer - 5 years ago
You know what really annoys me about all this. The Americans are the worst at accessing, backdoors in hardware and also hacking everything they could even on australian land IE(Pine Gaps were th australian sygnals directorate cannot access some areas!).
What Snowden showed us gave a massive insight and the yankls have the nerve to call russia out on hacking, FFS man what have the bloody CIA been doing since the 50's LOL the exact same thing.
Hypocrite much america?