Security News
UNITED NATIONS - The United States, United Kingdom and Estonia accused Russia's military intelligence Thursday of conducting cyber attacks against the Georgian government and media websites in an attempt "To sow discord and disrupt the lives of ordinary Georgians." Estonian Ambassador Sven Jurgenson read a statement afterward, flanked by UK Ambassador Karen Pierce and acting U.S. deputy ambassador Cherith Norman Chalet, saying the cyber attacks "Are part of Russia's long-running campaign of hostile and destabilizing activity against Georgia and are part of a wider pattern of malign activity."
U.S. and U.K. officials are blaming the Russian military for launching an October 2019 cyberattack on the country of Georgia that crippled at least 2,000 government, news media and court websites over the course of one day. A few hours after the U.S. and U.K. released their statements about Georgia on Thursday, the New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials had recently warned U.S. lawmakers that Russia has already taken steps to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
The US and UK governments have both accused Russia of launching a cyber attack against the Georgian government last year. The attacks, mounted on 28 October 2019, came from Russia's notorious GRU military intelligence unit, according to announcements from the US State Department and the UK's National Cyber Security Centre.
Georgian authorities on Thursday accused Russia's military intelligence of launching a large-scale cyberattack that targeted the government and private organizations with the goal of destabilizing the ex-Soviet nation. Georgia's Foreign Ministry said the Oct. 28 cyberattack was "Targeted at Georgia's national security and intended to harm Georgian citizens and government structures by disrupting and paralyzing the functionality of various organizations, causing anxiety among the general public."
"The National Cyber Security Centre assesses with the highest level of probability that on 28 October 2019 the GRU carried out large-scale, disruptive cyber-attacks," said the Foreign Office in a statement, referring to the main Russian overseas spy agency. Russia has few qualms about letting APT28 loose against foreign countries, as its attacks against Italy a few years ago showed.
Britain and the United States on Thursday accused Russia of orchestrating a "Reckless" cyber assault against Georgia last year as part of an aggressive campaign of online attacks worldwide. The British government said its National Cyber Security Centre had decided Moscow was behind the Georgia cyber attack "With the highest level of probability".
A Georgia man has admitted in court to employing a third-party to launch a distributed denial of service attack. Preston is the co-founder of BackConnect Security LLC, a company that provides protection against large-scale DDoS attacks.
A computer security expert says he found that a forensic image of the election server central to a legal battle over the integrity of Georgia elections showed signs that the original server was hacked. Logan Lamb, a security expert for the plaintiffs, said in an affidavit filed in Atlanta federal court on Thursday that he found evidence suggesting the server was compromised in December 2014.
In a bizarre "Whistleblower" case, federal prosecutors have charged a Georgia man in connection with an alleged "Intricate scheme" involving falsely reporting that a Savannah hospital worker committed criminal HIPAA violations. The U.S. Department of Justice says Jeffrey Parker, 43, who initially "Claimed to be a whistleblower," has been charged with falsely reporting that a "Former acquaintance" violated HIPAA by committing patient privacy violations.
Southwire Says It's Bringing Systems Back OnlineA large Atlanta-area manufacturer of wire and cable says it has brought some systems back online after what appears to be a ransomware infection....