DOJ charges seven Russian officials for hacking doping critics

Western nations accused Russia’s secretive military intelligence unit of new cybercrimes on Thursday, with Dutch and British officials labeling the GRU “brazen” for allegedly targeting the global chemical weapons watchdog and the investigation into the 2014 downing of a Malaysian Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine. All 298 people on board were killed.

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed charges against seven Russian intelligence officers for hacking various organizations to steal sensitive and embarrassing information, authorities said Thursday.

The British ambassador to the Netherlands said men caught with spy gear outside OPCW, for example, were from the same GRU section (Unit 26165) accused by American investigators of having broken into the Democratic National Committee’s email during the 2016 US presidential election.

Dutch and British officials have named four Russians they say are agents in a GRU intelligence cyber warfare team.

The head of Dutch counterintelligence confirmed that the OPCW was working on the Skripal investigation at the time but added that investigators “have not been able to prove that they targeted the OPCW because of the Skripal investigation”.

British government sources said they had has assessed with “high confidence” that the GRU was “almost certainly” behind the Democratic Party hack that some Hillary Clinton supporters claimed helped tip the U.S. election in Donald Trump’s favour, as well as the WADA attack which resulted in the release of the medical files of global sports stars including tennis’s Serena and Venus Williams and British cyclist Bradley Wiggins.

In 2016, after Russian athletes were excluded from the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, hackers operating as “Fancy Bear” accessed a World Anti-Doping Agency “Anti-Doping Administration and Management System” [ADAMS] created specifically for the Rio Games, gaining access to TUE information for all the athletes competing at the Rio Olympics. One had a phone that was activated near its headquarters. On April 13, these men were discovered by Dutch authorities and sent back to Russian Federation.

Yermakov, Malyshev, and Badin were among the 12 GRU officers indicted in July this year by Mueller, over alleged interference in the United States polls in 2016.

The operation by Russia’s GRU military intelligence targeted the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, according to Dutch Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld.

Zakharova’s words mocked British authorities who said GRU agents smuggled novichok into Britain in a perfume bottle and poisoned former spy Sergei Skripal and his adult daughter in March. “We are all agreed that where we see their malign activities, we must expose it to the light together”.

Earlier this year Dutch-led global investigators concluded that a missile that brought down MH17 belonged to a Russian brigade.

An announcement by the United Kingdom National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has also identified other bad actors and hacking groups that are associated with GRU operatives.

Eichelsheim said the four agents were operating out of a Citroen auto parked outside the Marriott Hotel, which is next to the organisations headquarters on Johann de Wittlaan.

Mark Flynn, Director General for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, left, and Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers, attend a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2018, at the Justice Department in Washington.

Corroboration for the claims poured in from world leaders and governments.

“This statement is irresponsible”, the embassy said.

Russian Federation however mocked the claims and retorted that the British spy agencies were carried away by “big fantasies”.

But he says the Russian hackers in the latest case allegedly used some of the same methods and had the same general goal: to spread disinformation and confusion.

Though less well known than the Soviet Union’s once mighty KGB, Russia’s military intelligence service played a major role in some of the biggest events of the past century, from the Cuban missile crisis to the annexation of Crimea.