FBI Says It Has Sabotaged Hacking Tool Created By Elite Russian Spies (reuters.com) 18
The FBI has sabotaged a suite of malicious software used by elite Russian spies, U.S. authorities said on Tuesday, providing a glimpse of the digital tug-of-war between two cyber superpowers. From a report: Senior law enforcement officials said FBI technical experts had identified and disabled malware wielded by Russia's FSB security service against an undisclosed number of American computers, a move they hoped would deal a death blow to one of Russia's leading cyber spying programs.
"We assess this as being their premier espionage tool," one of the U.S. officials told journalists ahead of the release. He said Washington hoped the operation would "eradicate it from the virtual battlefield." The official said the FSB spies behind the malware, known as Snake, are part of a notorious hacking group tracked by the private sector and known as "Turla." The group has been active for two decades against a variety of NATO-aligned targets, U.S. government agencies and technology companies, a senior FBI official said.
"We assess this as being their premier espionage tool," one of the U.S. officials told journalists ahead of the release. He said Washington hoped the operation would "eradicate it from the virtual battlefield." The official said the FSB spies behind the malware, known as Snake, are part of a notorious hacking group tracked by the private sector and known as "Turla." The group has been active for two decades against a variety of NATO-aligned targets, U.S. government agencies and technology companies, a senior FBI official said.
What did they do? (Score:2)
Hack the git repo?
I'd bet a red herring trick (Score:1)
> "We assess this as being their premier espionage tool," one of the U.S. officials told journalists
That's what the Ruskies want you to think.
Why would they tell people? (Score:2)
Something doesn't smell right about this. If you developed counter measures against the FSB, why would you go public instead of turning the tables?
Re: (Score:3)
Something doesn't smell right about this. If you developed counter measures against the FSB, why would you go public instead of turning the tables?
To let them know you've broken them. Now they have to go about figuring how it was done and try to develop something better. That takes time and effort. Also, it can sow doubt as to whether there's someone on the inside sabotaging the efforts.
In the meantime, they can't use the tool.
Re: (Score:2)
Good work, you paid attention to how a cold war works.
GP clearly didn't.
Re: (Score:2)
And this assumes that they *didn't* use the tool to feed bad/fake data to them until that couldn't usefully be done anymore, before going public.
Re: (Score:1)
it's obviously bullshit. that much was clear form the point "FBI says ...".
Re: (Score:2)
Reuters is a mouthpiece for the intelligence agencies.
So many documented cases of mere stenography of lies.
It's not worth debating which parts of a Reuters article are true anymore, if any.
Re: (Score:2)
Something doesn't smell right about this. If you developed counter measures against the FSB, why would you go public instead of turning the tables?
Because if you shut down a botnet or take it over, they certainly already know. The FBI is under a lot of pressure to contain rampant Russian hacking, ransomware infestations, etc -- and they don't do much in most cases. So, in this instance they want to brag about it because when it comes to cyber, the FBI is generally overwhelmed and ineffective. They can be effective when they go after particular cases, but those are few and far between -- usually connected with large asset seizures, heavy publicity,
Hopes and dreams... (Score:3)
Send SPIKE! (Score:1)
Too slow, SLUGHEADS!
FBI takedown track record abysmal (Score:3)
One small stain... (Score:2)
..time to clean up.
Not Russia This Time (Score:1)
Nope (Score:2)