Russian hackers hacked FBI communication system: how Washington avenged

29 December 2016 years of US power announced thethat gives 35 Russian diplomats only 72 hours to leave the States. Also the Obama administration captured two estates on the east coast owned by the Russian government.

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The public justification for the expulsion and closure of the territories by the Obama administration was to avenge Russia for interfering in the 2016 presidential election of the year. But there was another secret reason why these places and diplomats were targeted.

According to former U.S. officials, some of the exiled diplomats played key roles in the Russian counterintelligence operation, which stretched from the gulf to the center of the capital.

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U.S. officials found that the Russians significantly improved their ability to decrypt certain types of secure communications and successfully tracked devices used by FBI elite surveillance teams. Officials also feared that the Russians might have invented other ways to monitor U.S. intelligence.

The operation, aimed at liaising with the FBI, undermined the bureau’s ability to track Russian spies in the United States during a period of growing tensions with Moscow, forcing the FBI and the CIA to stop contact with some of the Russian assets.

“It was a very large-scale attempt to penetrate our most sensitive operations,” said a former senior CIA official.

Senior FBI and CIA officials informed Congressional leaders on these issues as part of a large-scale study of US counterintelligence vulnerabilities on Capitol Hill.

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The FBI’s systems were compromised shortly after the 2010 White House’s decision to arrest and expose a group of “illegal immigrants” - Russian operatives integrated into American society under deep unofficial cover - and reflected the resurgence of Russian espionage.

Just a few months after illegal immigrants pleaded guilty in July 2010, the FBI launched a new investigation into a group of secret Russian intelligence officers from New York. These Russian spies, the FBI found out, were trying to recruit a number of American assets, including American businessman Carter Page, who would later act as unpaid foreign policy adviser to the presidential campaign Donald Trump in 2016.

These violations also testified to more serious problems that the American intelligence services face in protecting national secrets. This issue is underscored by recent revelations first published by CNN that the CIA was forced to extract a key Russian asset and deliver it to the United States in 2017. The asset was reportedly critical to the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally led the intervention in the 2016 presidential election in support of Donald Trump.

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Yahoo talked about these previously unreported technical irregularities and the broader government debate over U.S. policy toward Russia, involving more than 50 current and former intelligence and national security officials, most of whom demanded anonymity to discuss sensitive operations and internal discussions. Although officials expressed different opinions about what went wrong with US-Russian relations, some said that the United States sometimes neglected spy calls from Moscow and paid a heavy price for not being able to prioritize technical threats.

According to former US officials, the discovery of the newfound ability to crack certain types of encryption in Russia was especially unnerving.

“Any time you discover that an adversary has these capabilities, it creates a ripple effect,” said a former senior national security official. “The Russians can take full advantage of any technology... They are especially dangerous in this area.”

In September 2011, Vladimir Putin announced the start of his third presidential campaign, which tens of thousands of protesters would face in the coming months accusing him of election fraud. Putin, a former intelligence official, has publicly accused then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of fomenting unrest.

Around the same time, Putin’s spies in the United States, acting under diplomatic cover, achieved what a former senior intelligence official called a “stunning” technical breakthrough, demonstrating his relentless attention to a country that they had long considered their main adversary.

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According to four former senior officials, the Russian operation went beyond tracking communications devices used by FBI surveillance teams. The Russians were able to intercept, record and, ultimately, crack codes for FBI radio communications.

This operation was part of a larger and more deliberate Russian campaign aimed at covert US government ties throughout the United States.

Russian spies have also deployed "mobile listening posts." Some Russian intelligence officers carrying signal equipment walked near the FBI surveillance teams. Others drove vans full of listening equipment designed to intercept messages from FBI teams.

According to a former senior CIA officer who served in Moscow, the Russians often tried to hide a human source as technical penetration.

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Mark Kelton, who served as chief of counterintelligence at the CIA until retiring in 2015, declined to discuss specific operations in Russia, but told Yahoo News that "the Russians are professionally experienced adversaries who have historically infiltrated all US institutions that are worth penetrating" .

This remains a major issue for US spy hunters. The number of ongoing espionage investigations against employees of the US government - in the CIA, the FBI and elsewhere - including those that could be recruited by Russia, is “not small, but many,” said another former senior counterintelligence officer.

The CIA has long been wary of Russian spy attempts to eavesdrop on outside the United States, especially near US diplomatic centers. Although the tools used by the Russians for these actions are “a bit outdated,” a former senior CIA official said, they were still “a constant problem.”

New security measures have been introduced in sensitive government agencies such as the headquarters of the FBI and the CIA. “It took a lot of procedural changes on our part to make sure that we are not prone to penetration,” said a former senior CIA official.

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While the FBI's communications system disruption appears to have ultimately prompted Congress and intelligence agencies to take action to counter Russia's increasingly sophisticated eavesdropping, Putin’s intervention in the 2016 election required the White House to expel at least some of them.

Even then, the decision was controversial. Some in Washington are worried about revenge on the part of the Russians and the revelation of US intelligence operations.

More than two years later, Russian diplomatic units used in compromise decisions by the FBI remain closed. The US government prevented the return of many Russian spies deported by the United States, according to national security experts and senior foreign intelligence officials. “They are slowly returning, but the FBI is complicating things,” said a senior foreign intelligence official.

Meanwhile, acquaintances with Russian operations warn that the threat from Moscow is far from over. “Make no mistake, we are waging a reconnaissance war with the Russians, just as dangerous as the Cold War,” said a former senior intelligence officer. “They try all the time ... and we catch them from time to time,” he said.

This is the same message that Special Attorney Robert Muller tried to convey during a highly controversial hearing to discuss his report on Russia's interference in the 2016 election. “They do it when we sit here, and they plan to do it during the next campaign,” Muller told lawmakers at the U.S. House Intelligence Committee on Russia's secret involvement in US politics.

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