Britain and the US are sounding the alarm about the Russian hacker group “Star Blizzard”.

Authorities in the United States and Britain accuse two Russian intelligence officers of carrying out a long-running “hack and leak” operation.

They are said to have hacked into other people’s computers and stolen large amounts of data since at least 2015. The consequences of the cyber attacks are not yet predictable.

What happened?

The US Department of Justice reported on the case on Thursday. The indictment alleges that FSB official Ruslan Aleksandrovich Peretyatko and IT employee Andrey Stanislavovich Korinets attempted to compromise the computers of employees of several U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

Also Thursday, the British government made public serious allegations about the same elite Russian hacker group.

British intelligence agency GCHQ said the hackers were “almost certainly subordinate to the FSB” and had passed on stolen information to undermine confidence in politics in Britain and like-minded countries.

The Foreign Office in London has summoned the Russian ambassador and imposed sanctions on the two Russians named in the US indictment.

The US State Department has offered a $10 million reward for information about the group members and their activities.

According to the US indictment, the men also targeted Ukraine as part of their work “on behalf of the Russian government.”

Apparently the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, made up of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the US, was involved in the investigation.

Who did the hackers attack in Britain?

According to the British government, the Russian secret service FSB has been trying to interfere in British politics since at least 2015 with cyber attacks on politicians, journalists and non-governmental organizations.

“I can confirm today that Russia’s FSB security service supports ongoing efforts to intervene in our democratic processes,” Foreign Minister Leo Doherty told parliament in London on Thursday.

Hundreds of people were reportedly targeted. Not only official email accounts, but also private accounts were attacked.

Those hacked apparently included a former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove.

The British government said:

Which hacker group is behind it?

The British government blames the FSB branch Center 18 for the cyber attacks. The attacks are said to have been carried out by the hacker unit ‘Star Blizzard’. This group is known by several names, including ‘ColdRiver’ and Seaborgium.

In a report published on Thursday, the UK’s National Cyber ​​Security Center (NCSC), the US Secret Service NSA, the FBI, the Cyber ​​National Mission Force (CNMF), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and authorities in Australia and New Zealand -Zeeland describes the tactics, techniques and procedures in detail.

The two men are said to have been involved in a ‘sophisticated, global spearphishing campaign’. They lure their victims to fake sites to obtain their login details. They then secretly gained permanent access to computers and email accounts of targets in numerous countries, including NATO members.

In January this year, Reuters revealed that the Russian hacking group had targeted three nuclear research labs in the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was director of the FSB for a time in the 1990s.

Why is that important?

Britain is expected to elect a new government next year, and presidential elections are also looming in the US.

Thursday’s public accusation is aimed at disrupting the hackers’ work and raising awareness about the upcoming major elections around the world, the BBC report said.

According to the BBC, the FSB group is believed to have stolen large amounts of data in recent years and only a fraction of it has been made public.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, currently in Washington, condemned the attacks. “This is unacceptable behavior,” he said in a video published on X (Twitter). Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told journalists he trusted the protection mechanisms and was confident he himself would not be affected by the hacker attack.

Given the technical capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), experts also warn of new dangers in elections, such as the spread of false information with fake videos, also known as deepfakes. A British government advisor warned in November that the population needed to be better informed.

How does Russia respond?

The Kremlin rejected the accusations.

The Russian embassy in London said there was “no reason to believe these allegations,” Russia’s state news agency Tass reported. The British government just wants to look good before the next general election and also demonstrate ‘leadership on the anti-Russian front’ abroad.

Sources

With material from the Keystone-SDA news agency

(dsc)