“Russian Hackers” Reemerge, Said To Demand Bitcoin Ransoms From Liberal Groups
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Mar 6, 2017
In the latest attempt to steer the political narrative away from Trump’s wiretapping accusations and back to Russian hackers, Bloomberg’s Michael Riley is reporting this morning that at least a dozen liberal groups in the U.S. have been targeted in a new wave of new cyber attacks. Apparently those hackers are scouring the emails of left-leaning organizations for embarrassing details and attempting to extract hush money in the form of, drumroll, “evil, anti-establishment” bitcoin.
At least a dozen groups have faced extortion attempts since the U.S. presidential election, said the people, who provided broad outlines of the campaign. The ransom demands are accompanied by samples of sensitive data in the hackers’ possession.
In one case, a non-profit group and a prominent liberal donor discussed how to use grant money to cover some costs for anti-Trump protesters. The identities were not disclosed, and it’s unclear if the protesters were paid.
At least some groups have paid the ransoms even though there is little guarantee the documents won’t be made public anyway. Demands have ranged from about $30,000 to $150,000, payable in untraceable bitcoins, according to one of the people familiar with the probe.
Of course, in what has become a journalistic norm, all of the details from Bloomberg come from two anonymous people “familiar with probes being conducted by the FBI and private security firms.”
And while Bloomberg admits that “attribution is notoriously difficult in a computer attack,” they go ahead and assert that all cyber crimes are perpetrated by Russian based groups anyway.
The hackers have used some of the techniques that security experts consider hallmarks of Cozy Bear, one of the Russian government groups identified as behind last year’s attack on the Democratic National Committee during the presidential election and which is under continuing investigation. Cozy Bear has not been accused of using extortion in the past, though separating government and criminal actors in Russia can be murky as security experts say some people have a foot in both worlds.
The Rest…HERE
