Eleven Western nations have accused a infamous Russian army intelligence hacking group of concentrating on protection, transport and tech companies concerned in serving to Ukraine.
The USA, the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France and the Netherlands on Wednesday launched a joint assertion on the Russian state-sponsored marketing campaign, which focused organizations concerned within the “coordination, transport, and supply of overseas help to Ukraine.”
The nations mentioned Unit 26165 of the Russian army intelligence service — recognized within the cybersecurity world as “Fancy Bear” — had carried out the marketing campaign for greater than two years utilizing quite a lot of techniques together with focused rip-off emails and stolen passwords.
Russian hackers concerned within the marketing campaign have gone after authorities organizations and personal corporations within the protection, transport, maritime, air site visitors administration and IT sectors, they mentioned.
Organizations from these industries primarily based in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and the U.S. had been focused, based on Wednesday’s assertion.
The Western nations explicitly linked the cyber marketing campaign to Russia’s struggle in Ukraine, saying the assaults ramped up after February 2022.
As Russian forces “failed to satisfy their army aims and Western nations offered help to assist Ukraine’s territorial protection, Unit 26165 expanded its concentrating on of logistics entities and know-how corporations concerned within the supply of help,” they mentioned.
A number of Russian hacking teams elevated their exercise at the moment, however Unit 26165 centered on espionage — together with concentrating on internet-connected cameras at Ukrainian border crossings and at the very least one group concerned in railway industrial management programs — the Western nations mentioned Wednesday.
Unit 26165 was beforehand sanctioned by the EU for hacking the German Bundestag in 2015. It has additionally been tied to hacks of the U.S. Democratic Nationwide Committee in 2016 and of e mail accounts belonging to then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Occasion in 2022 and 2023.
Extra just lately, France accused it of orchestrating cyberattacks on President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 election marketing campaign.