Security News > 2020 > October > Russian “government hackers” charged with cybercrimes by the US
You've probably seen the news that six Russians, allegedly employed by the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, better known as the GRU, have been charged with cybercrimes by the US Department of Justice.
The indictment of the Russian GRU hackers related to the attacks referred to collectively as "Sandworm" is an interesting development in attempts by Western governments to rein in foreign adversary attacks.
As Chester points out above, cybersecurity isn't only, or even predominantly, about heading off state-sponsored attacks, for the simple reason that the same attack techniques work no matter who carries them out.
Attackers find an exploitable software bug before anyone else and start using it before any software patches are available - what's known as a zero-day, because there were zero days during which even an on-the-ball system administrator could have patched proactively.
Many attacks - including the infamous and destructive NotPetya worm that the DOJ attributes to the Sandworm team - relied on exploits for which patches were already available.
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