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Microsoft claims win over 'Russian political hackers'
Russian attempts to launch cyber-attacks against US conservative groups have been thwarted, Microsoft says. The software company said Russian hackers had tried to steal data from political organisations, including the International Republican Institute and the Hudson Institute think tanks. But they had been thwarted when its security staff had won control of six net domains mimicking their websites.
Microsoft said the Fancy Bear hacking group had been behind the attacks. "We're concerned that these and other attempts pose security threats to a broadening array of groups connected with both American political parties in the run-up to the 2018 elections," Microsoft said in its blog detailing its work.
The thwarted attack was likely the start of a "spear phishing" campaign, said Microsoft. This would involve tricking people into visiting the mimicked domains allowing the Fancy Bear group to see and steal login information that people use. As well as the two think-tanks, the domains seized were associated with several Senate offices and services. One domain sought to mimic Microsoft's Office 365 online service.
Russia has denied Microsoft's allegations that it targeted the right-wing think-tanks.
Also at NYT, Reuters, and The Hill.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @05:13PM (19 children)
Another day, another piece of evidence that Russia is still hard at work trying to interfere in our elections. Targeting groups that are vocally anti-Russia or anti-Russian interference can't be a surprise to anyone (except maybe the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue).
Require 2-factor authentication for all campaign networks, VPNs and email systems (not fool proof, but much better than not using it), switch to paper ballots, and accept the fact that the election results won't be known five minutes after the polls close.
Accept that Russia is trying hard to capsize the boat of democracy or accept that they will own you.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday August 21 2018, @06:07PM (8 children)
Capsize... what? You call democracy the circus that you have?
With billions of dollars required for the "electoral process" to function, so that there's the chance of a snowflake in hell any candidate not bending forward to rich donors will ever be elected?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 21 2018, @07:09PM (6 children)
The rise of the anti-PAC Democrat [pbs.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:38PM
I modded your comment +1 Informative, because it is, but I can't see the people and organisations who run the US letting these anti-PAC Democrats have their way if the Justice Democrats are even being honest about their intentions.
I suppose we will find out in due course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:52PM (3 children)
Is it anti-pac and former spy or anti-pac vs former spy?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/07/dems-m07.html [wsws.org]
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @09:13PM (2 children)
Is this a list of the candidates? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Democrats [wikipedia.org]
The original article said 51 people were running under the anti-PAC label but I count 0/4 for senate and 42/71 eliminated from house races with 8 TBA and 21 wins/advances. I spot checked a few of the winners and they didnt seem particularly "deep state" heavy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @01:10PM (1 child)
How in the world is this a troll?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday August 22 2018, @02:18PM
I agree with you - I've redressed that mod by adding my own.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:20PM
Nice! Looks like Bernie was a GOOD influence on them.
Too bad they didn't see that earlier: HE might be president.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 22 2018, @12:13AM
I'll be trully happy to be proven wrong, even if it will take years.
Having all the politicians listening to the voters first will not only restore the proper democracy, but you may have the pleasant surprise to make it impervious to meddling from outside - the voted/voter relationship becomes too strong to be toppled by trolling.
of course, under the reserve the politicians keep their word once elected. This should come as a consequence, but many things can happen on the way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @06:35PM (5 children)
Cool story bro.
You'll need to give me evidence that's more convincing than an embarrassing leak from the DNC and a few hundred thousand dollars of Failbook ads.
It's amazing how you people still cannot accept that She Lost. You'll blame anyone and everyone except yourselves. Accept that Hillary Clinton was possibly the most awful candidate you could have put forward and that the DNC and intelligence services (viz. the CIA) are trying hard to capsize the boat of democracy, or accept that they will own you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:00PM (3 children)
No, I'm perfectly capable of understanding She Lost, that she was indeed the worst thing the DNC could have done, and that all organizations have their own intentions.
And that Russia works very hard to influence American politics.
Then again, I didn't vote for either Clinton or Trump.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 22 2018, @02:44AM (2 children)
Drop that "very hard" bit, and the sentence actually makes sense. Compare the total cost of the 2016 election, to the resources that Russia dedicated to the campaign. Russia's "contribution" to the election was negligible. Individual persons on each side of our partisan politics spent more than Russia.
Step back in history a few decades, to see how much effort the Soviet spent to get the US stuck in the quagmires of Korea and Vietnam. Compared to that, the money that the Russians spent on the 2016 presidential election is less than a pittance. In effect, they whipped out a bit of pocket change, and tossed it at Facefook to see what might happen.
What would be more surprising, would be if NO ONE attempted to influence our elections.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday August 22 2018, @02:23PM (1 child)
We have no idea how much it cost the Russians to mount any campaign. I'm not arguing whether they did or did not - but you cannot claim:
unless you have the hard evidence to back up your statement. We don't even know the extent of any Russian interference and, if they have done it properly, we never will.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 22 2018, @02:33PM
Yeah, you're right. I DON'T know how much or how little the Russians invested. I do know, however, that Facebook and others have "exposed" piddling amounts of money investment.
Had Russia spent billions, we might expect that we would have found a lot more than we have found. Unless we are just that damned incompetent!! If that last be true, then we deserve to have the Russians, the Afghans, and every tribe in the world meddling in our affairs!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @10:52AM
How about this lady? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @06:41PM (3 children)
Common knowledge back in the cold war days. I worked in a plant producing civilian avionics parts with armed guards at all exits. Possession of a wire longer than 6" was grounds for immediate termination as it could be used in some sort of transmission device.
People were a lot more paranoid back then.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @09:17PM (2 children)
Trump is colluding with the avians.
https://images.tenplay.com.au/~/media/News/National%20News/extra%20jpegs%20for%20outage/2016/November%202016/18/trumpbird.jpg [tenplay.com.au]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:42PM (1 child)
Trump deports avian's [deviantart.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:44PM
http://specialarad.ro/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/TrumpBird.jpg [specialarad.ro]