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Mueller probe IDs long-hidden hackers

TU Curmudgeon

B.A. (Sarc), LLb. (Lex Sarcasus), PhD (Sarc.)
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From the Associated Press

Mueller probe IDs long-hidden hackers

PARIS (AP) — On the morning of March 19, 2016, Den Katenberg ran a little test with big stakes.

The previous week, Katenberg’s hacking crew had been bombarding the Hillary Clinton campaign’s email accounts with fake Google warnings, trying to get her Brooklyn-based staff to panic, enter their passwords and open their digital lives to Russia’s intelligence services.


But the going was tough. Even when Clinton staffers clicked the malicious links Katenberg crafted, two-factor authentication — a second, failsafe password test — still kept him out of their accounts.


After a day of testing on March 18, he took a different tack, striking the Clinton’s campaign staff at their personal — and generally less secure — Gmail addresses. At 10:30 the next morning he carried out one last experiment, targeting himself at his own Gmail address to make sure his messages weren’t being blocked.


An hour later he sent out a barrage of new malicious messages to more than 70 people, including one to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. By the end of the day, he’d won access to one of the most important inboxes in American politics.


On Friday, the U.S. special counsel said Katenberg was an alias used by Lt. Aleksey Lukashev, an email phishing specialist with Unit 26165 of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, often abbreviated GRU.

COMMENT:-

Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.

That "The Latest: Indictment says Kremlin behind US election hacks" is just Fake News.
 
Mueller probe IDs long-hidden hackers

I may be mistaken, but I think the only people from whom the hackers have been hidden are members of the general public. I think the USIC and POTUS have known about them for quite some time.

Indeed, it's now clear that Trump knew about the GRU hackers even as he was making his "witch hunt" remarks in the UK. That he did and yet made the remarks he did is proof that one cannot rely on a damn thing that man utters....not literally, not contextually, not directionally....not in any way, shape or form.
 
And a Russian hacker just tried getting into a Democratic candidate's Facebook page. Every Democrat would be wise to secure their webpages, email accounts and social media accounts until they're as much like Fort Knox as possible. Everybody who knows anything is fully aware that 2016 was simply the warmup for what's going to happen this November. Any Democrat that hasn't moved to two step authentication by now is basically holding a billboard saying "Hack my webpage."
 
Old stuff ... December 2016:


"... According to the New York Times, the Obama administration was slow to respond to the hacking threat, underestimated its seriousness and fluffed several opportunities to stop it. The resulting email furore damaged Clinton’s election prospects and helped Trump to victory, as the Kremlin had almost certainly intended.

After the data breach the DNC hired CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company. It quickly established the hack had originated in Russia and identified two groups, Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear. Cozy Bear, linked to Russia’s FSB spy agency, had begun its phishing operation in summer 2015, the paper reported.

Fancy Bear joined the attacks in March 2016. The hacking group is linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence. It was Fancy Bear that hacked Podesta’s email account, the paper said. The two Kremlin hacking groups were seemingly unaware of each other, sometimes stockpiling the same stolen documents. ..."


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...s-hacked-russia-aide-typo-investigation-finds
 
I'm totally amazed that prior to Trump's election there was never another case of political hacking. I mean, there have been some real dirtballs running for office over the years and not just in this country but other countries too. To think that until 2016 the thought of hacking a campaign worker's email had never occurred to anyone is, to my thinking, absolutely astonishing.
 
Old stuff ... December 2016:


"... According to the New York Times, the Obama administration was slow to respond to the hacking threat, underestimated its seriousness and fluffed several opportunities to stop it. The resulting email furore damaged Clinton’s election prospects and helped Trump to victory, as the Kremlin had almost certainly intended.

After the data breach the DNC hired CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company. It quickly established the hack had originated in Russia and identified two groups, Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear. Cozy Bear, linked to Russia’s FSB spy agency, had begun its phishing operation in summer 2015, the paper reported.

Fancy Bear joined the attacks in March 2016. The hacking group is linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence. It was Fancy Bear that hacked Podesta’s email account, the paper said. The two Kremlin hacking groups were seemingly unaware of each other, sometimes stockpiling the same stolen documents. ..."


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...s-hacked-russia-aide-typo-investigation-finds

"We don't need to continue the war against Japan, Italy and Germany. The bombing of Pearl Harbor happened on Roosevelt's watch. Why didn't he stop it?"
 
I'm totally amazed that prior to Trump's election there was never another case of political hacking. I mean, there have been some real dirtballs running for office over the years and not just in this country but other countries too. To think that until 2016 the thought of hacking a campaign worker's email had never occurred to anyone is, to my thinking, absolutely astonishing.

Ergo...what...that we shouldn't prosecute hackers and protect ourselves from further cyberattacks? Please clarify the message you're trying to convey in your goofy post.
 
I'm totally amazed that prior to Trump's election there was never another case of political hacking. I mean, there have been some real dirtballs running for office over the years and not just in this country but other countries too. To think that until 2016 the thought of hacking a campaign worker's email had never occurred to anyone is, to my thinking, absolutely astonishing.

Here are two, there are likely many more.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/deadlineusa/2008/sep/17/uselections2008.sarahpalin
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/...obamas-unclassified-emails-officials-say.html
 
And a Russian hacker just tried getting into a Democratic candidate's Facebook page. Every Democrat would be wise to secure their webpages, email accounts and social media accounts until they're as much like Fort Knox as possible. Everybody who knows anything is fully aware that 2016 was simply the warmup for what's going to happen this November. Any Democrat that hasn't moved to two step authentication by now is basically holding a billboard saying "Hack my webpage."

Reading yesterday of a group of tech people are trying to get Dems to use more digital adds, go digital and that IMHO would include hardening their websites/emails

Found the link
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/technology/tech-midterms-democrats.html

“What’s at stake if we don’t build a true centralized digital arm is falling further behind the Republicans and continuing to lose ground, the battles on key issues and elections at every level,” said Jessica Alter, a co-founder of the group and a longtime tech executive. “If we don’t start now, it will be too late in 2020.”

Republicans are way ahead in using the Net.
 
rogue repubs are already leaking Lisa Page’s testimony behind closed doors yesterday.
 
From the Associated Press

Mueller probe IDs long-hidden hackers

PARIS (AP) — On the morning of March 19, 2016, Den Katenberg ran a little test with big stakes.

The previous week, Katenberg’s hacking crew had been bombarding the Hillary Clinton campaign’s email accounts with fake Google warnings, trying to get her Brooklyn-based staff to panic, enter their passwords and open their digital lives to Russia’s intelligence services.


But the going was tough. Even when Clinton staffers clicked the malicious links Katenberg crafted, two-factor authentication — a second, failsafe password test — still kept him out of their accounts.


After a day of testing on March 18, he took a different tack, striking the Clinton’s campaign staff at their personal — and generally less secure — Gmail addresses. At 10:30 the next morning he carried out one last experiment, targeting himself at his own Gmail address to make sure his messages weren’t being blocked.


An hour later he sent out a barrage of new malicious messages to more than 70 people, including one to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. By the end of the day, he’d won access to one of the most important inboxes in American politics.


On Friday, the U.S. special counsel said Katenberg was an alias used by Lt. Aleksey Lukashev, an email phishing specialist with Unit 26165 of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, often abbreviated GRU.

COMMENT:-

Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.

That "The Latest: Indictment says Kremlin behind US election hacks" is just Fake News.

Too bad it wasn't a government server with people who's job it is to prevent unauthorized access.
 
Reading yesterday of a group of tech people are trying to get Dems to use more digital adds, go digital and that IMHO would include hardening their websites/emails

Found the link
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/technology/tech-midterms-democrats.html



Republicans are way ahead in using the Net.

My own security habits are fine because nobody (that I'm aware of) has reason to hack me personally. However, you can bet that if I was a Democratic candidate I would spare no expense for a web security expert to see how well I'd fare against a targeted cyberattack. I think I'm secure, but the truth is there's probably a billion things I never thought of.
 
Too bad it wasn't a government server with people who's job it is to prevent unauthorized access.

What point are you trying to communicate in your post? Do you even know?
 
My own security habits are fine because nobody (that I'm aware of) has reason to hack me personally. However, you can bet that if I was a Democratic candidate I would spare no expense for a web security expert to see how well I'd fare against a targeted cyberattack. I think I'm secure, but the truth is there's probably a billion things I never thought of.

One way is all critical info held on an off line server. Limited access. Training volunteers on phishing and phony emails/password changes.
That said the Dems are not using basic tools to get out to voters as noted in the link
 
I'm totally amazed that prior to Trump's election there was never another case of political hacking. I mean, there have been some real dirtballs running for office over the years and not just in this country but other countries too. To think that until 2016 the thought of hacking a campaign worker's email had never occurred to anyone is, to my thinking, absolutely astonishing.

Who claimed there were no other cases of political hacking? *crickets*
Who claimed the thought never occurred to anyone? *crickets*

Of course it occurred to people. Of course they had security. Of course many of the attempts failed. If you had read up on what occurred with the DNC hacks for example, you'd know that for example that Russian hacking is well known in industry:

We've had lots of experience with both of these actors attempting to target our customers in the past and know them well. In fact, our team considers them some of the best adversaries out of all the numerous nation-state, criminal and hacktivist/terrorist groups we encounter on a daily basis. Their tradecraft is superb, operational security second to none and the extensive usage of 'living-off-the-land' techniques enables them to easily bypass many security solutions they encounter.[4]

An adversarial world power uses it's elite state-run hacking group against the U.S. Likely regularly, and against targets more problematic like power grids, military, etc. Sometimes likely with success. That's also irrelevant. That they hacked the DNC is not the worst thing in the world, but they were able to use it to help shape the election with the help of Americans who could determine how and when to use that illegally obtained information. They were caught doing it, is an issue. There were many attempts that were not successful, it usually only takes one or two, once they are in, if not immediately caught, it's over.

You really think Russia having a substantial impact on meddling in our presidential election is not an issue? Funny.
 
Who claimed there were no other cases of political hacking? *crickets*
Who claimed the thought never occurred to anyone? *crickets*

Of course it occurred to people. Of course they had security. Of course many of the attempts failed. If you had read up on what occurred with the DNC hacks for example, you'd know that for example that Russian hacking is well known in industry:



An adversarial world power uses it's elite state-run hacking group against the U.S. Likely regularly, and against targets more problematic like power grids, military, etc. Sometimes likely with success. That's also irrelevant. That they hacked the DNC is not the worst thing in the world, but they were able to use it to help shape the election with the help of Americans who could determine how and when to use that illegally obtained information. They were caught doing it, is an issue. There were many attempts that were not successful, it usually only takes one or two, once they are in, if not immediately caught, it's over.

You really think Russia having a substantial impact on meddling in our presidential election is not an issue? Funny.

Ok. Since I seem to be on a roll with dumb questions, what was it about this hacking and propaganda effort that made it worse than previous ones? Why wasn’t everyone as outraged over those prior acts? Why wasn’t a special prosecutor appointed before the 2016 incident?
 
Ok. Since I seem to be on a roll with dumb questions, what was it about this hacking and propaganda effort that made it worse than previous ones? Why wasn’t everyone as outraged over those prior acts? Why wasn’t a special prosecutor appointed before the 2016 incident?

What's your point, Lutherf? Should we not prosecute hackers or protect ourselves against future attacks? What is the message you're trying to convey?
 
Ok. Since I seem to be on a roll with dumb questions, what was it about this hacking and propaganda effort that made it worse than previous ones? Why wasn’t everyone as outraged over those prior acts? Why wasn’t a special prosecutor appointed before the 2016 incident?

You appear to be asking why the FBI wasn't concerned about other hacking attempts by foreign actors that potentially changed the outcome of a U.S. election and were coordinated with the help of Republicans, including the campaign that won? I'm not aware of anything like that in our history. It's as big as it gets, short of violence/war, don't ya think?

But if you have some examples of large scale state hacking that the FBI was involved in investigating, and you don't feel their outrage meets your personal level of comfort, please post a thread on it, I would contribute to the thread productively.

Back to the topic at hand?
 
Ok. Since I seem to be on a roll with dumb questions, what was it about this hacking and propaganda effort that made it worse than previous ones? Why wasn’t everyone as outraged over those prior acts? Why wasn’t a special prosecutor appointed before the 2016 incident?
Give us some examples of previous ones, maybe some information on their scope?

Sent from Trump Plaza's basement using Putin's MacBook.
 
I may be mistaken, but I think the only people from whom the hackers have been hidden are members of the general public. I think the USIC and POTUS have known about them for quite some time.

Indeed, it's now clear that Trump knew about the GRU hackers even as he was making his "witch hunt" remarks in the UK. That he did and yet made the remarks he did is proof that one cannot rely on a damn thing that man utters....not literally, not contextually, not directionally....not in any way, shape or form.

Now don't be so hard on Mr. Trump.

When "The Sun" reported that he made demands, Mr. Trump denied that he had done so and stated (paraphrased) "If there were any tapes they would prove the truth of what I am saying.".

Well, there were, in fact, tapes ("The Sun" had made them).

"The Sun" did, in fact, release the tapes.

Those tapes did, in fact, "prove the truth" of what Mr. Trump was saying.

They showed that he had been lying in his teeth when he denied saying what he had said and thus "proved" that there was no truth in what Mr. Trump was saying when he denied saying what he had said.

The old Russian joke is "В новостях нет 'истины', и в Истине нет 'новостей'."

[highlight to read>>"There is no truth in 'News' and there is no news in 'Truth'."<<​

and Mr. Trump loves Russia.
 
You appear to be asking why the FBI wasn't concerned about other hacking attempts by foreign actors that potentially changed the outcome of a U.S. election and were coordinated with the help of Republicans, including the campaign that won? I'm not aware of anything like that in our history. It's as big as it gets, short of violence/war, don't ya think?

But if you have some examples of large scale state hacking that the FBI was involved in investigating, and you don't feel their outrage meets your personal level of comfort, please post a thread on it, I would contribute to the thread productively.

Back to the topic at hand?

Give us some examples of previous ones, maybe some information on their scope?

Sent from Trump Plaza's basement using Putin's MacBook.

Here's a pretty good timeline of the major attacks - https://www.nato.int/docu/review/2013/cyber/timeline/en/index.htm

The hack of the OPM in 2015 was pretty significant as was the hacking of the IRS in 2015 and 2016. Cyber warfare has been a major issue for the past decade and way back in 1983 there was a rather popular movie starring Matthew Broderick that broached the subject. However, all these attacks prior to 2016 were treated as criminal issues. After Trump's election, however, the 2016 attack was treated as a political issue. It just makes me wonder if this hacking would have been addressed in the way it is now if anyone other than Trump had won the election.
 
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