Russia Warns Against ‘Dangerous’ Hacking Allegations That ‘Incite Tensions’

The US government announced on Thursday that it has indicted seven Russian intelligence officials for hacking targets in the United States.

They spoke after officials from both countries blamed the GRU for a series of attacks against the global chemical weapons watchdog and other agencies, including the World Anti-Doping Agency and groups investigating the 2014 Malaysian Airlines crash over Ukraine.

The men, who were also believed to have spied on the investigation into the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 had planned to travel on from the Netherlands to a laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland used by the OPCW to analyze chemical weapons samples, he said.

And some are hoping – after Brexit – to exploit Britain’s absence from the European Union to weaken sanctions next time they have to be agreed.

The OPCW is the world’s foremost chemical weapons watchdog, and in June granted itself new powers to assign blame for attacks despite protests by Russian Federation.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis talks with Supreme Allied Commander Europe U.S. Army general Curtis Scaparrotti during a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, October 4, 2018.

The US indictment said that the GRU targeted its victims because they had publicly supported a ban on Russian athletes in global sports competitions and because they had condemned Russia’s state-sponsored athlete doping program.

One of these saw officers deployed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August 2016, in an intrusion that resulted in an International Olympic Committee official’s credentials being captured and used to gain unauthorised access to accounts. Athletes’ data including medical records were stolen and posted online, with the false claim that a hacktivist group was behind it. Dutch investigators said the snoopers nabbed outside the OPCW also appear to have logged into the Wi-Fi networks near the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Malaysian hotels where crash investigators had gathered.

One official from the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport had their laptop compromised by malware.

But British government sources said the NCSC has assessed with “high confidence” that the GRU was “almost certainly” behind the DNC hack that some Hillary Clinton supporters claimed helped tip the U.S. election in Donald Trump’s favour.

Most attacks were based around obtaining passwords via phishing-tricking people into giving up details by using fake emails, websites, or text messages-or using ransomware to encrypt the contents of a computer, then demanding payment.

According to a secret White House assessment recently cited by “Wired”, the attack caused $10bn worth of damage worldwide.

John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said while the defendants overlap, the case brought on Thursday did not involve Mueller’s office.

The Dutch authorities released CCTV imagery of the four men arriving at Schipol Airport as well photographs of their passports.

In Washington, the USA criminal indictment targeted seven GRU officers, including three who had been previously charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for their role in allegedly interfering in US elections.

The chemical weapons watchdog had confirmed that Skripal was poisoned by the Soviet-produced nerve agent known as Novichok.

Peter Wilson, the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the Netherlands, said, “With its aggressive cyber campaigns, we see the GRU trying to clean up Russia’s own mess – be it the doping uncovered by Wada [the World Anti-Doping Agency] or the nerve agent identified by the OPCW”.

Russia scathingly accused the West of “spy mania”, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly and angrily rejected similar charges.

Speaking with reporters in the House of Commons foyer on Thursday, foreign affairs parliamentary secretary said additional sanctions on Russian Federation are possible, and could be announced in a matter of days. Moscow denied the Bellingcat report, describing the allegation as “bogus”.

“How we respond is a political decision by the nations involved”, Mattis said after a meeting with his North Atlantic Treaty Organisation counterparts, although he said there would not necessarily be a “tit-for-tat” response by the West.