Justice Department Indicts 12 Russian Nationals Tied to 2016 Election Hacking

The United States Justice Department on Friday revealed 12 indictments versus Russian nationals, implicating them of taking part in a “sustained effort” to hack Democrats’ emails and computer system networks.According to Rod Rosenstein, United States deputy Attorney General, all 12 accuseds are members of the GRU, a Russian federation intelligence firm. Rosenstein accused all 12 of participation in hacking Hillary Clinton’s presidential project, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Project Committee. It accuses them of intent to”release that details on the web under the names DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0.” The Justice Department bewared to tension that there is no accusation in the indictment that any American was a knowing participant in the alleged criminal activity and that no assertion is being made that alleged criminal activity “changed the vote count or altered the outcome of the 2016 election. “Rosenstein said the 12 that were arraigned were officials in System 26165 and System 74455

of the Russian federal government’s Main Intelligence Directorate.Deputy Lawyer General Rod J. Rosenstein Announces the Indictment of Twelve Russian Intelligence Officers

for Conspiring to Interfere in the 2016 Presidential Election Through Computer Hacking and Related Offenses https://t.co/4di0Drcokd!.?.!pic.twitter.com/x4PFJycIPk!.?.!The DOJ alleges, in 2016, authorities in Unit 26165 started targeting volunteers and staff members of the governmental campaign of Hillary Clinton, consisting of the project‘s chairman, with spear phishing messages.The release of humiliating DNC documents humiliated Clinton’s project chairman John Podesta and ultimately result in the resignation of then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.”Through that process, authorities in this unit had the ability to take the usernames

and passwords for numerous people and utilize those qualifications to take e-mail content and hack into other computer systems,” inning accordance with the Justice Department.”They likewise had the ability to hack into the computer system networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee(DCCC )and the Democratic National Committee(DNC )through these spearphishing methods to take emails and files, discreetly keep an eye on the computer activity of dozens of employees, and implant hundreds of files of destructive computer system code to take passwords and keep access to these networks.” The indictment likewise accuses System 26165 with teaming up with Unit 74455 “to plan the release of the stolen documents for the purpose of hindering the 2016 governmental election.”

Rosenstein stated that the offenders registered the domain DCLeaks.com, which was later utilized to launch thousands of stolen emails and files under the guise of being” American hacktavists.” The groups supposedly used phony Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote the DCLeaks.com website.”After public accusations that the Russian federal government was behind the hacking of DNC and DCCC computers, offenders developed the fictitious persona Guccifer 2.0. On the evening of June 15, 2016 in between 4:19 PM and 4:56 PM, offenders utilized their Moscow-based server to look for a series of English words and phrases that later appeared in Guccifer 2.0’s first post wrongly claiming to be a lone Romanian hacker responsible for the hacks in the hopes of undermining the accusations of Russian participation,”according to the Justice Department.The declared hacking didn’t stop at the Clinton project as well as consisted of “state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and US business that supplied software application and other innovation related to the administration of elections to take voter information kept on those computer systems.” In all, Russian nationals deal with 11 criminal

counts: Count One alleges a criminal conspiracy to commit an offense versus the United States through cyber operations by the GRU that included the staged release of taken files for the purpose of interfering with the 2016 president election; Counts Two through 9 charge intensified identity theft for utilizing identification coming from 8 victims to enhance

  • their computer system fraud plan; Count Ten declares a conspiracy to wash cash in which the offenders laundered the equivalent of more than$ 95,000 by transferring the cash that they used to purchase servers and to fund other costs related to their hacking activities through cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin; and Count Eleven charges conspiracy to devote an offense against the United States by trying to hack
  • into the computer systems of state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and US companies that provided software and other technology associated to the administration of elections.