There have been several reported Russian cyberattacks by intelligence agencies. In fact, US military hackers were also ready to retaliate if needed during the recently concluded Presidential election. Now, cyber security firms have revealed that Russia started to attack US-based policy think tanks.
It is believed that their government wants to get ahead of the incoming US administration.
Russian Hackers Are Active Again Post-Election
After the intense US Presidential election, Russian hacker group Cozy Bear may be working doubly hard with spear-phishing campaigns and other cyberattacks. According to the Business Insider, this is hours after Donald J. Trump became the official President-elect. They were previously accused of hacking the Democratic Party before the election.
Cyber security firm AlienVault's Chief Scientist Jaime Blasco told Reuters that the Russian hackers are trying to gain access to information with regards to the transition period of the US government. Security expert Adam Segal revealed that among the target of the Russians include the Council for Foreign Relations.
The Russian government had already denied any hacking allegations before. The country is yet to comment on this latest news.
The Spear-phishing Campaigns
Normally, spear-phishing campaigns involve malicious emails. Particularly, they contain malware that can infect computers. Business Insider further reports that they appear to be from a familiar sender to the organization that receives it. In addition, they usually contain an interesting subject that attracts the recipient to read it.
Another cyber security firm Volexity explained that some of the emails they were able to track seemed to come from Harvard University. They had subjects that went like this "Why American Elections are flawed".
Apparently, the federal law enforcement is investigating the said attacks according to Harvard Chief Information Security Officer Christian Hamer. His staff has already been warned about the issue. Hamer pointed out that the hackers used the school's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. This is though no one of its members actually sent those emails.
Other Possible Russian Hackers Exploits
According to Krebs On Security, the Obama administration had publicly acknowledged in October that the Russians might have been behind the hack of the Democratic party. It should be noted that information and emails were stolen and eventually revealed to the public through WikiLeaks and other sites.
It was also reported that Russian hackers would try to disrupt the US Election Day itself.
