Russian Cyber Activity

This analysis report provides information and gives insight into the activities of the Russian civilian and military intelligence Services (RIS) conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. The Grizzly Steppe Report provides details regarding the tools and hacking techniques used by the Russian hackers in order to interfere the 2016 U.S. elections. This activity by RIS is just part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens. These cyber operations have included spearphishing campaigns targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure entities, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations leading to the theft of information. In foreign countries, RIS actors conducted damaging and/or disruptive cyber-attacks, including attacks on critical infrastructure networks. In some cases, RIS actors masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack. This report provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. Government.

Cyber attacks are a real threat to our country. This report presents the opposed views of USA and Russia on cyber security and gives insight into the activities of the Russian civilian and military intelligence Services (RIS) conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. The Grizzly Steppe Report provides details regarding the tools and hacking techniques used by the Russian hackers in order to interfere the 2016 U.S. elections. This activity by RIS is just part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens. These cyber operations have included spearphishing campaigns targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure entities, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations leading to the theft of information. In foreign countries, RIS actors conducted damaging and/or disruptive cyber-attacks, including attacks on critical infrastructure networks. In some cases, RIS actors masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack. This report provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. Government. The edition also provides crucial information on the legality of hostile cyber activity at state level. While the United States and its allies are in general agreement on the legal status of conflict in cyberspace, China, Russia, and a number of like-minded nations have an entirely different concept of the applicability of international law to cyberspace.

This analysis report provides information and gives insight into the activities of the Russian civilian and military intelligence Services (RIS) conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. The Grizzly Steppe Report provides details regarding the tools and hacking techniques used by the Russian hackers in order to interfere the 2016 U.S. elections. This activity by RIS is just part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens. These cyber operations have included spearphishing campaigns targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure entities, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations leading to the theft of information. In foreign countries, RIS actors conducted damaging and/or disruptive cyber-attacks, including attacks on critical infrastructure networks. In some cases, RIS actors masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack. This report provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. Government.

Russia has deployed cyber operations to interfere in foreign elections, launch disinformation campaigns, and cripple neighboring states—all while maintaining a thin veneer of deniability and avoiding strikes that cross the line into acts of war. How should a targeted nation respond? In Russian Cyber Operations, Scott Jasper dives into the legal and technical maneuvers of Russian cyber strategies, proposing that nations develop solutions for resilience to withstand future attacks. Jasper examines the place of cyber operations within Russia’s asymmetric arsenal and its use of hybrid and information warfare, considering examples from French and US presidential elections and the 2017 NotPetya mock ransomware attack, among others. A new preface to the paperback edition puts events since 2020 into context. Jasper shows that the international effort to counter these operations through sanctions and indictments has done little to alter Moscow’s behavior. Jasper instead proposes that nations use data correlation technologies in an integrated security platform to establish a more resilient defense. Russian Cyber Operations provides a critical framework for determining whether Russian cyber campaigns and incidents rise to the level of armed conflict or operate at a lower level as a component of competition. Jasper’s work offers the national security community a robust plan of action critical to effectively mounting a durable defense against Russian cyber campaigns.

This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies. It covers the motivation and scope of Moscow's intentions regarding US elections and Moscow's use of cyber tools and media campaigns to influence US public opinion. The assessment focuses on activities aimed at the 2016 US presidential election and draws on our understanding of previous Russian influence operations. When we use the term "we" it refers to an assessment by all three agencies. * This report is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment. This document's conclusions are identical to the highly classified assessment, but this document does not include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence on key elements of the influence campaign. Given the redactions, we made minor edits purely for readability and flow. We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion. * New information continues to emerge, providing increased insight into Russian activities. * PHOTOS REMOVED

The Russian regime's struggle for internal control drives multifaceted actions in cyberspace that do not stop at national borders. Cybercrime, technical hacking, and disinformation are complementary tools to preserve national power internally while projecting effects onto myriad neighbors and rivals. Russian activity in the cyber domain is infamous in the United States and other Western countries. Weaponizing Cyberspace explores the Russian proclivity, particularly in the 21st century, for using cyberspace as an environment in which to launch technical attacks and disinformation campaigns that sow chaos and distraction in ways that provide short-term advantage to autocrats in the Kremlin. Arguing that Russia's goal is to divide people, Sambaluk explains that Russia's modus operandi in disinformation campaigning is specifically to find and exploit existing sore spots in other countries. In the U.S., this often means inflaming political tensions among people on the far left and far right. Russia's actions have taken different forms, including the sophisticated surveillance and sabotage of critical infrastructure, the ransoming of data by criminal groups, and a welter of often mutually contradictory disinformation messages that pollute online discourse within and beyond Russia. Whether deployed to contribute to hybrid war or to psychological fracture and disillusionment in targeted societies, the threat is real and must be understood and effectively addressed.

What is the relationship between cyber activities conducted by Russia at home and abroad? What role do cyber operations play as an instrument of Russia's coercive diplomacy? How different is Russia from other cyber powers, and how do we know for sure if the Kremlin is behind certain cyberattacks that have been attributed to it? It focuses on what lessons EU member states have learned from recent events, and on how the EU and NATO have responded to these cyber challenges on the diplomatic, political and security fronts. The paper argues that Russia's aggressive use of cyber tools has led the US and many Europeans states to adopt more defensive cyber strategies, and that as a result Russia may have lost the strategic advantage it has hitherto enjoyed in what is becoming an ever-more contested domain This Chaillot Paper examines these and other key questions as it explores how Russia's increasingly assertive behaviour in cyberspace has lent new urgency to the debate about cybersecurity in the West.

Conflict in cyberspace is not a new phenomenon, but the legality of hostile cyber activity at a state level remains imperfectly defined. While the United States and its allies are in general agreement on the legal status of conflict in cyberspace, China, Russia, and a number of like-minded nations have an entirely different concept of the applicability of international law to cyberspace. This e-book presents the opposed views of USA and Russia on cyber security. Ultimately, you can find out from the official report how cyber-attack can jeopardize national security in the latest attack performed by the Russian hackers in order to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections.

*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Russia has been depicted by the media as a cyberspace boogeyman, a nation of hackers that can and will exploit any and all vulnerabilities of private organizations, government entities, and social media platforms. Over the last 10 years, as hackers all over the world have been mobilized to carry out state agendas, this "nation of hackers" reputation has evolved into something much more serious. The vague notion of "Russian hackers" used to primarily worry CTOs of banks and credit card companies, while merely amusing or fascinating curious people, but today, Russian cyberwarfare keeps military officers, policymakers, and ordinary citizens around the world up at night. From alleged interference in foreign elections to coordinated power outages in Ukraine, numerous large-scale cyber attacks are thought to have been carried out by Russian state agencies and their proxies recently. Certain Western leaders have gone so far as to claim that Russian cyber warfare eclipses even terrorism in threatening global security- in the words of British Army General Sir Nick Carter, Russia "represents the most complex and capable state-based threat to our country since the end of the Cold War." The roots of cyber warfare, cyber espionage, and information warfare in Russia from signals intelligence and industrial espionage date back to the time of the USSR, while modern day information warfare and cyber warfare relate to Russian military operations. This book also looks at World War II's aftermath, signals intelligence and espionage during the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and how the resulting chaos cultivated Russia's homegrown hacker talent. Through it all, this book looks at how Russia has interacted with other countries in the cyber domain, especially its former Soviet neighbors and the United States. Whether Russia does indeed eclipse other Western adversaries as the top global security threat, it is undeniably the home to an immensely talented community of hackers, many of whom have expressed willingness to employ their skills to support Russian foreign policy objectives, typically for monetary compensation. And regardless of whether these hackers are directly sponsored by the Russian state, foreign governments, or the intermediaries operating on behalf of the them, the history of Russia's cyber warfare is a fascinating one. Russian Cyber Warfare: The History of Russia's State-Sponsored Attacks across the World details the Russian intelligence groups' efforts to wage cyber warfare online. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Russia's cyber activities like never before.

As the election results of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections still reverberate in the U.S. and throughout the world, the discussion on how Donald Trump won and whether Russian influence helped his win continues. Leaked conspiracy theories which would have fitted well in a John le Carré spy novel seem corroborated by U.S. intelligence reports. In this volume, you find declassified versions of two reports by the U.S. intelligence agencies released at the end of 2016 and at the beginning of 2017. The first report, Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections, describes Russia's activities in the media, social media, and cyberspace during the latest and previous U.S. elections. In this report, the U.S. Intelligence Community confirms "...Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order...." Also, they state that this campaign had a clear preference for Donald Trump to win. This report concludes ominously that Moscow will apply lessons from this campaign to influence other elections worldwide. The second report, GRIZZLY STEPPE- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity, shows how two groups, part of the Russian Intelligence Services, hacked into an-unnamed-U.S. political party. Furthermore, it offers technical advice and suggestions to organizations on how they could protect themselves against cyberattacks. Although it might take some time before we really understand the impact on the 2016 elections, these two brief reports are fascinating reading for political observers, journalists, and readers concerned about what really happened in 2016.