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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Justice Dept. announces charges against 7 Russian operatives for cyber attacks [cbsnews.com]

Seven Russian military intelligence officers with hacking anti-doping agencies and other organizations, the Justice Department announced at a press conference Thursday.

According to a Justice Department press release, a grand jury in Pennsylvania sent the indictment, which says that beginning around December 2014 and up through May 2018, the operatives conducted sophisticated computer hacking operations that affected people in the U.S., corporations, international organizations and their employees around the world, "based on their strategic interest to the Russian government."

According to Eric Welling, Deputy Assistant Director for the FBI's Cyber Division, these GRU hackers operated under the name "Fancy Bear Hacking Team," the same group of Russian government-backed hackers that was the focus of Special Counsel Robert Muller's indictment of GRU hackers early this summer. Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division, John Demers, said that these hackers were caught "red-handed" in a "conspiracy to hack a variety of individuals and organizations in the United States, Canada and Europe" with the goal of distorting the public's perception of truth.

International anti-doping organizations and officials were targeted by the Russian operatives after they exposed and condemned Russia's athletic doping program [cbsnews.com]. According to Justice Department officials, the operatives tried to publicize information they had stolen in order to undermine and delegitimize the anti-doping organizations.

Also at the BBC [bbc.com].

Previously: Sports Doping Agency WADA Says Hackers Lifted Olympic Athletes' Medical Records [soylentnews.org]

Related: Former Russian Anti-Doping Boss Dies Suddenly [soylentnews.org]
Betteridge Asks: Will Russian Doping Scandal Lead to Reform of the Olympics? [soylentnews.org]

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