In an interesting turn of events following the impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump, experts from the Silicon Valley-based security firm Area 1 told the New York Times that Russian military hackers have been attacking Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the scandal.
Trump’s impeachment process stemmed from his preoccupation with the idea that former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden were involved in a corruption ring involving Burisma, since Hunter serves on the board of the company. The President attempted to pressure Kyiv to investigate the matter, and this is the request that stirred a complaint from a government whistleblower and led to the impeachment trial.
The intentions and findings of the Russian hackers are unknown for now, but the experts claim that the scale and timing of the attack suggest that Moscow could be searching for information on the Bidens, similar to the kind of material that Trump sought from Volodymyr Zelensky’s government.
The tactics used by the Russian intelligence in the recent hack are uncannily comparable to the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee and emails sent by John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
In 2016, the military hackers (also known as G.R.U. and Fancy Bear) used phishing emails to steal usernames and passwords. In this attack, hackers created fake websites mimicking the login pages of Burisma’s subsidiaries and sent employees fake emails claiming to be from the company. They used the information mined from this to access the firm's servers.
American officials have warned that Russian hackers have become stealthier since 2016 and are yet again attempting to spread damaging information to target the system ahead of the upcoming 2020 elections.
No officials from Russia or Burisma responded to requests for comments.
Image Source: Fudzilla