Russian Agents Who Hacked DNC Emails Presumed Bitcoin Would Keep Them Unknown
Twelve officers of the Russian military are charged for money laundering for attempting to use bitcoin to hide their role in influencing the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
It was in July 2016 when the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced it had been hacked by two Russian hacking groups, going by the names “Fancy Bear” and “Cozy Bear”. The two groups managed to infiltrate the DNC system and sharing thousands of emails with “Gucifer 2.0“, a Romanian hacker. A few days later, the emails were published on WikiLeaks.
Led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the 12 agents of the Russian military have now been indicted by a grand jury. Apparently, the group attempted to compromise the elections, going as far as attacking state boards of election, election software providers, and secretaries of state. Interestingly, there is no mention of whether the group was able to influence the voting polls.
Most of them have been identified as members of the GRU, Russia‘s largest foreign intelligence agency. Furthermore, it is believed they used a tool that has been linked to other GRU-backed hacking attacks. The 12 officers reportedly used spear-phishing tactics with the help of a tool called “X-Agent.”
This X-Agent, also known as “Sofacy,” is a tool meant to hack into iOS and Android smartphones.