Russian Info, Cyber and Disinformation (July 2017 to end '17)

Moderator's Note

A new thread for these topics. The earlier thread, which covered January-June 2017, had 1048 posts, with 63k views:Russian Info, Cyber and Disinformation (Jan-June 2017)

Update July 9th 2017: This thread clearly overlaps with others, especially the allegations that Russia has interfered / intervened in the US election process and a large number (124 plus) of posts were added here instead of being posted in the Trump thread - as that thread was closed for a review. Those posts will now be moved to the Trump thread, which will remain closed(ends).

The last time Holder tweeted something like this was the day Comey was fired.

Many in D.C. are speculating that something big is on its way.

The same APT that stands behind #BlackEnergy (Prykarpattyaoblenergo fame) is responsible for the #Petya attack.

APT 28.......Russian state sponsored GRU hacking group....

Kremlin propaganda outlet @SputnikInt
will now air in DC on a radio station that used to play bluegrass music. Because it's 2017.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/34...cal-dc-station

A new thread for these topics. The earlier thread, which covered January-June 2017, had 1048 posts, with 63k views:Russian Info, Cyber and Disinformation (Jan-June 2017)

A small number of posts may be moved here in a moment, so this post is likely not to be the first post.

This is an example of the automated Twitter bot trolls working in Germany and it is exactly the same way in US even using English...

Wow!
This really works.
An automated #Kremlin troll network reacts to certain terms on @twitter with propaganda replies.

NOTE...there have been 1.2M automated non human bots ADDED to Trump's twitter account as "Followers" in the last 21 days......

BUT the Russian AI is not working as well as they planned it would..as there have been some examples of automated bots replying to an automated bot....

First results of the bot fishing: bots just search keywords ИГИЛ, СБУ, НАТО and post spam replies, no matter what's source tweet's language

EU Mythbusters
✔
@EUvsDisinfo
More disinformation about EU: a reaction of pro-Kremlin outlets to extended sanctions against Russia #Disinforeview:
http://mailchi.mp/euvsdisinfo/dr74#

Russia was behind global cyber attack, Ukraine says

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...a7819501.html#

Veterans Today, which partners with Russian and Iranian propaganda media, has a subtle message.

What is a US Vets group doing working with Russian and Iranian media outlets.....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

First results of the bot fishing: bots just search keywords ИГИЛ, СБУ, НАТО and post spam replies, no matter what's source tweet's language

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Russia attacks Ukraine. @loogunda translates witness accounts. Russian cyberwar hits @loogunda … @Twitter helpless

Shipping giant Maersk brings systems back online after cyber attack: http://reut.rs/2szi5Mp

1500 applications were knocked off line......

.@InVID_EU releases its browser extension for verifying images, videos on the web, Insta, FB, YT, Twitter & others
https://goo.gl/Fo8i73

Full Fact has been awarded $500,000 to build two world-leading automated factchecking tools
https://fullfact.org/blog/2017/jun/a...-factchecking/

FB no longer lets you edit headline or pic in link preview before sharing. Feature was being abused to post misinfo:
https://developers.facebook.com/blog...-Link-Previews …

Internal docs shed light on algorithms Facebook’s censors use to differentiate #HateSpeech & political expression
https://www.propublica.org/article/f...ampaign=buffer

Useful analyses on Petya, the camouflaged wiper targeting Ukraine

https://tisiphone.net/2017/06/28/why...uld-worry-too/ … https://medium.com/@thegrugq/pnyetya...47c-1498684536 … https://securelist.com/expetrpetyano...somware/78902/ …

NEW: Despite hacking charges, U.S. tech industry fought to keep ties to Russia spy service
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN19L10I

Kaspersky Chief Says Willing To Allow U.S. Officials To Examine Products' Source Code
https://www.rferl.org/a/kaspersky-la.../28591824.html …

Gitmo detainees watch Russian propaganda, courtesy of the US military.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/gitmo-d...om-us-military …

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

Kaspersky Chief Says Willing To Allow U.S. Officials To Examine Products' Source Code
https://www.rferl.org/a/kaspersky-la.../28591824.html …

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what many do not understand about IT security and hacking and or malware attacks...they are designed usually to exploit weaknesses in the coding of a software product.....

In millions of lines of coding there is always a deficient line or two that allow exploitations against those specific code weaknesses....

This also goes for anti viral software.....REMEMBER when the latest Russian cyber attack on Ukraine hit...ONLY 16 anti viral products actually detected it out of a tested leading 25 AV products......

THIS goes also for Kaspersky.....ALL software has back doors...and I literally mean ALL....that is what hackers are always looking for to include nation state security services....

THIS response by Russia concerning Kaspersky is extremely interesting as they have never responded in this way if for say Rosneft or Gazprom loses a deal...........

REMEMBER in the Kaspersky cyber lab there are FSB liaison officers..one was recently arrested for allegedly spying for the US.....AND Kaspersky has all the end user individual computer data as it provides support for those legally purchased copes of their software.

Russia Threatens Retaliation If Pentagon Bans Kaspersky Software

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...tware-j4k2inwq

Quote:

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Any “unilateral political sanctions” by the U.S. may prompt a response from Russia, whose government systems use “a huge proportion of American software and hardware solutions in the IT sphere, even in very sensitive areas,” Nikiforov said in an interview on Friday. He declined to identify U.S. software products that may be affected by any reciprocal sanctions.

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REMEMBER Russia has forced all US IT companies to provide them all backdoors and source coding in order to do business in Russia...WHICH they all complied with including say Cisco and IBM....

So when the US does he same the Russians flip out.....WHY......

Article on this was previously posted here...

Core element of Russian non linear warfare.....Russian doctrine from 2014...

Quote:

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The first and second phases consist of non-military asymmetric warfare. They include information warfare, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures, but also special operations conducted to mislead political and military leaders. Coordinated measures are carried out by diplomatic channels, media, top government and military agencies; they include leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions. The third phase’s objective is to consolidate the first two, by intimidating, deceiving, or bribing government and military officers, with the objective of making them abandon their duties.

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Taken from George Kennan 1948....

Quote:

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Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz's doctrine in time of peace. In broadest definition,
political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national
objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures (as ERP--the Marshall Plan), and "white" propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of "friendly" foreign elements, "black" psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.

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Putin propagandists pick up ex-Pentagon PSYOPpers
by Dr Waller
February 14, 2016

http://acmeofskill.com/2016/02/putin...gon-psyoppers/

Quote:

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Zlatko Kovach is one of them. Just blocks from the White House, the 48-year-old editor runs the Washington office of Sputnik, which styles itself as a straight news service that aspires to compete with the Associated Press and Reuters. Three of Kovach’s fellow ex-Pentagon contract workers joined him. Two have moved on, but Sputnik is actively recruiting others.
Kovach, a naturalized American citizen, doesn’t see his move as unpatriotic but rather as economically justified. “Despite the big superpower relations, the media has developed in such a way as that’s the nature of the market,” he said. “It isn’t harming the U.S.”
Sputnik is part of a news and information outlet known in the United States as RT, the initials of its parent entity, Russia Today, which operates under the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media in Moscow. With State Department approval, RT opened the Washington office of Sputnik last year just as civilian contractors who shaped U.S. military messaging overseas were put out of work when Congress shut down most of a $22 million program.
They practiced what used to be called psychological operations, or PSYOP, a name that was changed to something more benign-sounding in the Pentagon’s alphabet soup of acronyms: MISO, for “military information support operations.”

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NOTE...Sputnik and Russia today have yearly budgets in excess of 1.5B USDs and are hard core Russian government 400% owned propaganda media outlets in over 128 countries....

Sputnik just purchased a former Blue Grass radio station in DC....

This is an interesting article in that it has been stated that the cyber attack in Ukraine came via this particular software update.....

Which actually flies in the face of confirmed actual hacking events that occurred shortly after a car bomb killed a UAF SOF COL of the military Intelligence...which for some strange reason has been largely glossed over by IT media and MSM media....

Family firm in Ukraine says it was not responsible for cyber attack

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cy...technologyNews

Quote:

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"What has been established in these days, when no one slept and only worked? We studied and analysed our product for signs of hacking - it is not infected with a virus and everything is fine, it is safe," said Olesya, managing partner at Intellect Service.
"The update package, which was sent out long before the virus was spread, we checked it 100 times and everything is fine."
Little known outside Ukrainian accounting circles, M.E.Doc is an everyday part of life at around 80 percent of companies in Ukraine. The software allows its 400,000 clients to send and discuss financial documents between internal departments, as well as file them with the Ukrainian state tax service.

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NOTE
1. the update in question was sent out long before the attack
2. normally updates are tested on a variety of in-house computer systems in order to ensure there are not compatibility problems and if the malware was in the update it would have then triggered on at least one of those test systems....
3. does not explain just how then it spend to such companies as Maresk shipping that did not use the Ukrainian software....
4. AND more importantly the entire 400,000 customer base was not inflected if it had been the single update that was responsible....

MS really needs to explain just how this NSA exploit was able to spread so quickly even on MS machines that had the MAR 2017 security updates to hinder just such an attack...

There is far more to this attack than is being publicly written about....