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Security United States Politics

Russian Hackers Launch Targeted Cyberattacks Hours After Trump's Win (vice.com) 160

Posted by msmash from the aftermath dept.
Hours after Donald Trump won the Presidential Election, a group of hackers that is widely believed to be Russian and was involved in the breach of the Democratic National Committee launched a wave of attacks against dozens of people working at universities, think tanks, NGOs, and even inside the US government. From a report on Motherboard:Around 9 a.m. ET on Wednesday, the hackers sent a series of phishing emails trying to trick dozens of victims into opening booby-trapped attachments containing malware, and clicking on malicious links, according to security firm Volexity, which observed and reported the five attack waves. The targets work for organizations such as Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, the Atlantic Council, the RAND Corporation, and the State Department, among others. One of the phishing emails included a forwarded message appearing to be from the Clinton Foundation, apparently sent by a professor at Harvard. The email used the professor's real address, and according to Volexity's founder Steven Adair, it's likely that the professor got hacked and the attackers then used his account to send out the phishing emails. (The professor did not respond to a request for comment.) One of the targets, who shared the email she received with Motherboard, said she "almost fell for it."
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Russian Hackers Launch Targeted Cyberattacks Hours After Trump's Win More

Russian Hackers Launch Targeted Cyberattacks Hours After Trump's Win

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  • They took off Election day so they wouldn't taint the results. Good for them!

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 )

      They took off Election day so they wouldn't taint the results. Good for them!

      And also to celebrate that their candidate won.

      • Wouldn't they do that the day after the results were known? Like yesterday?

        • Wouldn't they do that the day after the results were known? Like yesterday?

          They're Russians, so they had to spend yesterday sobering up.

    • They took off Election day so they wouldn't taint the results.

      Sounds plausible, but the real reason that Russia took election day off is because they were publicly informed that if any Russian cyber malfeasance was detected there would be immediate and effective retaliation.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Bwa, ha, ha. That is just main stream media bullshit and chatter. Russia has to do a whole bunch more just to catch up to cyber crimes targeted at it. Reality is down that path are a series of targeted electro magnetic pulses, not nuclear, do not have to be, just thousands upon thousands of attacks, crippling metropolitan centres for weeks at a time. So no, everyone is backing off, except the criminals of course, they are still hard at it and that is why the big players, the governments need to work togethe

    • Anyone who ever ran his own mail server would have noticed that spam and malware attacks follow the US work week and public holidays. So the simple fact is that most of these 'Russian' hackers are living in the USA.

      • Anyone who ever ran his own mail server would have noticed that spam and malware attacks follow the US work week and public holidays. So the simple fact is that most of these 'Russian' hackers are living in the USA.

        Sorry, but your logic does not follow.

        It would make the most sense to do your dirty deeds on busy days. Also, November 8, voting day, is not an official Holiday in most places.

  • False News (Score:5, Informative)

    by BradMajors ( 995624 ) on Thursday November 10, 2016 @03:08PM (#53260109)

    This is a funny story to post immediately after another story was posted about false news.

  • Getting Trump into the White House was just the beginning.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Were you born and spent your life in a video rental store, or something? Your accusations hint that your view of the world is like a bad Hollywood movie. Russian hackers can't "hack" the election and decide who gets to be president, get it?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Adriax ( 746043 )

        Was that "get it" with the same tone of voice a mob enforcer would say "capisce"?
        Are your comrades currently tracking down what school Mr quax's kids go to?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by quax ( 19371 )

        Russian hackers can't "hack" the election and decide who gets to be president,

        Nice AC projection. Of course that's not how they operate they are way more subtle than that. Going through Wikileaks for instance was very crafty.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Clsid ( 564627 )

          And yet you seem totally convinced that it was Russians that did it, when all your information comes from US govt sources or the BBC, which historically have a major propaganda machine against them. Legitimate or not, stop being a tool.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by quax ( 19371 )

            You are thoroughly mistaken in where you think my information comes from.

            I am a German native speaker, and also can read French pretty well. The intelligence that Trump has been compromised has hardly filtered through MSM yet.

            I put a pretty high chance on the possibility that you just put the ultimate Manchurian candidate into the White House.

      • Maybe you're a Russian infiltrator.

  • So...phishing is news now? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Thursday November 10, 2016 @03:11PM (#53260131)
    >> the hackers sent a series of phishing emails trying to trick dozens of victims into opening booby-trapped attachments containing malware, and clicking on malicious links

    So...phishing is news now? Zzzzzzz...

  • NEWSFLASH!!! (Score:4, Informative)

    by CajunArson ( 465943 ) on Thursday November 10, 2016 @03:13PM (#53260153) Journal

    Russian Hackers did shit during practically every day of Obama's presidency.

    Conspiracy?!?!?!?!?

    • It's still Obama's presidency. They've been doing stuff all year.

    • Russian Hackers did shit during practically every day of Obama's presidency.

      Conspiracy?!?!?!?!?

      YES!

      Simple Definition of conspiracy
      : a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal
      : the act of secretly planning to do something that is harmful or illegal

  • How is this news? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Hackers sent out phishing attempts. How is this news? What next? The sun rose?

    • Well, yeah, OhBumma said the sun will rise in the morning and it did.

    • Hackers sent out phishing attempts. How is this news? What next? The sun rose?

      Well, here in the US, it will rise in about 3 to 4 hours. Of course, that is not news. . .

  • Of course they do (Score:4, Insightful)

    by quax ( 19371 ) on Thursday November 10, 2016 @03:28PM (#53260261)

    With a bit of active help they got the president they wanted. Why stop now?

  • After all they did to help him, he must be very proud of them.

    • After all they did to help him, he must be very proud of them.

      He's got a new debt to repay.

      • After all they did to help him, he must be very proud of them.

        He's got a new debt to repay.

        No, the debt gets pushed to the next administration, that's their SOP.

  • Proof (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bmo ( 77928 ) on Thursday November 10, 2016 @03:30PM (#53260287)

    Anyone with a passing familiarity with malware knows that such spear-phishing scams may be /anyone/ /anywhere/.

    So they're Russian, you say? (picture of Putin glowering at the top of the article) How come you're so /certain/ it's the Russian government and not, you know, the Russian Mob (Russian Business Network and affiliates) or someone in the RBN pretending to be FSB or any combination of Russian speaking expatriates or even the CIA posing as FSB or RBN or something much more mundane?

    >undetectable
    >detected
    >passed by the filters

    BECAUSE ANYONE WITH ANY SENSE IN HIS HEAD WHO IS WRITING MALWARE HAS ALL THESE FILTERS THEMSELVES TO MAKE SURE THEY PASS BEFORE RELEASING INTO THE WILD.

    This has been standard operations for malware for the past, oh, nearly 20 years. Because the filters are only as good as the latest definitions and anything not in the definitions is going to skate right on by. THIS IS NOT NEW.

    I'm treating these nearly fact-free vague news stories like this as pure propaganda, because that's what they are. Like our top-secret-hush-hush "CLANDESTINE" retaliations at the putative "russians" /announced/ on NBC News (fucking really?).

    This fucking forced march into a new Cold War is fucking stupid. The clowns that have been pushing for it since the collapse of the Soviet Union need to be imprisoned at the very least.

    --
    BMO

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rholtzjr ( 928771 )
      They have to distract us in anyway possible in order to not have us look too closely at what is behind the curtain and what they are really doing. They really need to come up with a better tactic other than "Look over here, look over here, pay no attention to the person behind the curtain".

    • The clowns that have been pushing for it since the collapse of the Soviet Union need to be imprisoned at the very least.

      So are you going to be the one to go to Russia and get them to lock up Putin? ... I ask because it normally takes at least two to quarrel.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Clsid ( 564627 )

        Look closely why the Russians acted that way. They were being pushed. If somebody started crap in Cuba, where Guantanamo is, or Bahrain or Japan, where the US has bases, you can be a 100% the US will make sure shit hits the fan.

        So number one fact that happened, EU sponsored coup d'etat against a pro-Russian govt in the Ukraine, where they have this major base in Crimea. Conclusion: Russians annexed Crimea and supported rebels in the East.

        Number two: Trying to forcefully remove Bashar Al Assad from Syria. Th

    • Generally, when a US "agency" fingers a particular group as the source of an attack it is because they possess complete routing information.

    • When we're talking about spear-phishing then it's wise to look at the targets: who would benefit from hacking "Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, the Atlantic Council, the RAND Corporation, and the State Department"? This "Russian Business Network"? There is a widespread and long-standing series of attacks which points to the Russian state being the culprit. I'll post this again because it was unaccountably modded to zero before.

      BBC News summarized the evidence [bbc.co.uk] for the Russian state being behind a whole

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vinlud ( 230623 )

      This fucking forced march into a new Cold War is fucking stupid. The clowns that have been pushing for it since the collapse of the Soviet Union need to be imprisoned at the very least.

      Its quite the opposite from a march to a new Cold War, what the stories are implying (and we'll see from January onwards how much meat there is to it) is that Trump and Putin will passively work together to cover eachothers asses. Putin hacks and flamewars the opposition in the US, Trump will let Russia do what it wants. Not

  • In non-related news. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10, 2016 @03:40PM (#53260369)

    10's of millions of turkeys are cooked and eaten just hours after Trump is elected!!! Proof of the end of times brought about by the election!!!

    (Ok, so it is more like 384 hours, and this has nothing to do with Trump, but the two have to be related somehow right? Or could it just be that hackers do what hackers do?)

  • Put the proof on the table (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    or shut the f-ck up. The Russian hacker boogey-man bullshit is getting tiresome, and nobody believes it anymore. Anyone can compromise machines anywhere in the world and launch attacks from them, and the only ones who have been proven to do so are the NSA, so this is more likely some bullshit propaganda scare again. Show us the irrefutable proof that Russian state-sponsored hackers are attacking U.S. systems, or stop posting crap like this.

  • Strike when the Enemy is confused or off-balance. Post-election depression makes the target more emotional, more vulnerable to phishing.
  • ... to give to WikiLeaks to help their buddy when he gets into the White House in January.
  • The attack was launched against DOZENS of people.

    Only one person "Almost fell for it".

    Russian Hackers: Give up.

  • > The email used the professor's real address, and according to Volexity's founder Steven Adair, it's likely that the professor got hacked and the attackers then used his account to send out the phishing emails.

    You don't need to access the account to include a SUBJECT header. Whoever wrote that article has no idea about how SMTP works.

    • > The email used the professor's real address, and according to Volexity's founder Steven Adair, it's likely that the professor got hacked and the attackers then used his account to send out the phishing emails.

      You don't need to access the account to include a SUBJECT header. Whoever wrote that article has no idea about how SMTP works.

      It sounds like you don't either, otherwise you would have said "envelope", not "subject". Sure, it can all be spoofed but it's way easy to just hijack a Windoze box, plus easier to cover tracks (though not foolproof...)

  • And So What? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Fucking Establishment Media is still trying to start another cold war...

    Sorry bitches but the current administration isn't going to push your shitty pseudoliberal corny agenda.

    • Fucking Establishment Media is still trying to start another cold war...

      Sorry bitches but the current administration isn't going to push your shitty pseudoliberal corny agenda.

      Agreed that the media wants to re-ignite another cold war. It's good for advertising, and likewise good for the MISC (formerly MIC). The most I've heard out of Putin lately is that, "We want to be a citizen and trade partner with the Global Community."

      Sure, supposedly 'Fancy Bear' is located there, but they could be VPN'ing in from anywhere on the planet.

      The second half of your post is unintelligible, so I will ignore it.

  • Like any good Criminal, they study Human Nature and know it inside out.

    The Election was late-breaking news and people were hungry for tidbits of information. That means many (not all, of course) normally wary and aware recipients of the eMail would have fallen for it, despite probably knowing better the other 364 days of the year.

    The results may have played a role in the uptake, but it would have worked regardless of who won, as long as it was reasonably close, and that would include the state results only
  • It seems Dems, govt, and others victims of cyberattacks. I haven't seen mentions of such on the Republicans or some emails from Trump. Maybe RNC doesn't use internet as much as the DNC? Or no dirt on Trump to release because he openly says what he thinks anyway? Just wondering.

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