Georgia, USA and Britain accuse Russia of cyber attack on Georgian sites - ForumDaily
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Georgia, USA and Britain accuse Russia of cyber attack on Georgian sites

The ministries of foreign affairs of Great Britain, the USA and Georgia have accused the intelligence unit of the Russian armed forces, known as the GRU, of a large-scale cyber attack on Georgian Internet sites, including the administration of the country's president, government, courts and television channels. Air force.

Фото: Depositphotos

Moscow, through Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko, denies any guilt. “Russia did not intend and does not intend to in any way interfere in the internal affairs of Georgia in one form or another,” Rudenko told RIA Novosti.

A wave of hacker attacks on Georgian government agencies and the media occurred on October 28, 2019. Broadcasting of several television channels was interrupted, government servers were blocked, the work of several public institutions was paralyzed.

On the subject: Two Ukrainians accused of cyber attacks on the US Securities Commission

In many cases, the home pages of websites were replaced with a photo of the country's former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, with the caption in English "I'll be back."

“The cyber attack was directed against the national security of Georgia,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Tbilisi believes that Russian hackers, at the direction of the Russian command, deliberately tried to paralyze the activities of many institutions, cause panic among people and thus harm Georgian citizens.

Washington and London made their statements simultaneously with the Georgian Foreign Ministry - and also blamed Moscow for the attacks.

Previous cyber attacks blamed on the GRU

December 2015 The power system of Ukraine was attacked. About 230 thousand people were left without electricity for one to six hours.

December 2016 A computer virus designed specifically to damage power systems has caused electricity outages in Kiev. About an hour, about a fifth of the city was left without electricity.

June 2017 A powerful cyber attack was directed against state institutions of Ukraine, as well as financial and energy organizations in the country. Several European and Russian companies were also affected.

October 2017 As a result of an attack using ransomware (a virus that seized control of a computer), hard drives on the servers of the Kiev metro, Odessa airport, the Central Bank of Russia and two Russian media were encrypted.

Source: UK Foreign Office

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo directly blamed the cyber attack on Georgia on the main directorate of the Russian General Staff and specifically on military unit number 74455, also known as Sandstorm.

Three of the 12 Russian officers attributed to the U.S. in absentia for hacker attacks on the eve of the 2016 presidential election are assigned to the same unit, located north of Moscow.

The British Foreign Office also condemned the actions of Russian military intelligence directed against Georgia. "Britain, Georgia and foreign partners have identified the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service, as responsible for a number of significant cyber attacks against Georgia in the past year," the British Foreign Office said in a statement. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the actions of the GRU hackers brazen and reckless.

Analysis: Gordon Corera, BBC Security Correspondent

The statements continue Britain's policy of putting pressure on Russian intelligence since the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury two years ago. The purpose of this policy is to try to prevent further Russian actions by exposing them.

A notable aspect of the current allegations of Russian involvement is that they are talking about relatively recent events that occurred in October 2019. Among the victims were Georgian television channels.

The GRU has been attacking television companies since at least 2015, when the French channel TV5Monde was taken off the air. This raised concerns that similar actions are possible with respect to broadcasters in other countries.

These steps are seen as part of Russia's hybrid warfare tactics. It is also described as actions in the “gray zone”, designed to destabilize the situation in various states.

But so far there are no clear signs that the GRU is truly being contained - and this is a problem for the UK.

The 2020 US presidential elections will be very indicative in this sense. Will Russian intelligence try to interfere with them, just as they allegedly tried to do in 2016?

The British National Cybersecurity Center notes that intelligence agencies were more than 95% likely to determine what the GRU was behind the cyber attacks on Georgia in October 2019.

The Georgian presidential administration stated that on October 28, 2019, Russia directly attacked “the sovereignty and national security of the country, attempting to paralyze the activities of state institutions.” “This cyber attack is a flagrant violation by Russia of international norms and a clear manifestation of hybrid warfare against Georgia,” the statement said.

On the subject: In the US, there was a cyber attack, because of which disrupted the release of the country's largest newspapers

Nina Akhmeteli, BBC correspondent, Tbilisi:

During the 2019 attack on approximately two thousand Georgian sites, visitors instead of the original content saw a photograph of the smiling ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili. The same picture appeared on the web page of Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili.

Organizations that have been victims of a cyber attack have reported quite serious damage. Representatives of hosting companies talk about the unprecedented scale of attacks.

Experts called the fact that state structures became the object of the attack particularly alarming. And even then, there were speculations that Russian intelligence services were behind these events.

The Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs has launched an investigation into articles on unauthorized entry into computer systems and an attempt to obtain computer data.

Many were skeptical about the actions of law enforcement agencies: “According to the investigation, the cyber attack was carried out either from Georgia or from outside its borders. That is, they narrowed the geographical area,” opposition deputy Otar Kakhidze ironically commented on the Ministry of Internal Affairs statement at the time.

This is not the first time Georgia has been targeted by hackers. One of the largest cyber attacks was carried out in Georgia in 2008. Then its objects were the web pages of government departments and the media.

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Miscellanea USA cyberattack Germany Russia GRU World
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