The United States on Monday unsealed criminal charges against six Russian intelligence officers in connection with some of the world’s most damaging cyber attacks, including disruption of Ukraine’s power grid and releasing a mock ransomware virus — NotPetya — that infected computers globally causing billions of dollars in damage.
That group, authorities say, also hacked computers supporting the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, hacked and leaked emails of individuals involved in French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign in 2017, and targeted the international and British organizations investigating the poisoning of a former Russian operative, Sergei Skripal, two years ago in Britain.
The alleged hackers are members of the same military intelligence agency — the GRU — previously charged in connection with efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. But the new indictment does not charge them with U.S. election interference, and officials said the announcement was not timed to the current political schedule. Continue reading.