Former Conti Ransomware Gang Members Helped Target Ukraine, Google Says (theverge.com) 13
A cybercriminal group containing former members of the notorious Conti ransomware gang is targeting the Ukrainian government and European NGOs in the region, Google says. From a report: The details come from a new blog post from the Threat Analysis Group (TAG), a team within Google dedicated to tracking state-sponsored cyber activity. With the war in Ukraine having lasted more than half a year, cyber activity including hacktivism and electronic warfare has been a constant presence in the background. Now, TAG says that profit-seeking cybercriminals are becoming active in the area in greater numbers. From April through August 2022, TAG has been following "an increasing number of financially motivated threat actors targeting Ukraine whose activities seem closely aligned with Russian government-backed attackers," writes TAG's Pierre-Marc Bureau. One of these state-backed actors has already been designated by CERT -- Ukraine's national Computer Emergency Response Team -- as UAC-0098. But new analysis from TAG links it to Conti: a prolific global ransomware gang that shut down the Costa Rican government with a cyberattack in May.
Maybe not the best idea. (Score:1)
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...Taking all of northern Canada and moving downward until they finally reach the Exclusion Zone...
And given the Canadian political scene, nobody would notice until the mass execution of transexuals on college campuses started giving people notice that Trudeau was no longer running things.
helped or is helping? (Score:1)
Kick Russia off the internet (Score:2)
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I mean, it's not like they don't want it themselves, we're just gonna do what they want to do anyway.
Opportunistic or Mercenaries? (Score:4, Interesting)
FTA: According to TAG’s analysis, the members of this group are using their expertise to act as initial access brokers — the hackers who first compromise a computer system and then sell off access to other actors who are interested in exploiting the target.
I wonder if they came to the conclusion that Russian hackers would be good customers on their own or if Russia specifically tried recruiting them.
There must be easier targets than a country that's in an active defensive war (and thus more on edge) so I suspect the Russians are paying a big premium for access.
NOW can we have ... (Score:2)
A cybercriminal group containing former members of the notorious Conti ransomware gang is targeting the Ukrainian government and European NGOs ...
So they're committing actual acts of war in an actual war. A big one. Maybe THE big one. Already gone semi-nuclear. AND they're doing it from the territory of, in the pay of, and at the direction of, the aggressors - who are the side NATO, the US, and the EU are opposing.
NOW can we have drone strikes on their operations?
Or even just active cyber counter-attack
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Sounds like an act of war. (Score:2)
The context is war so interpret any laws as required then kill the perps as they are legitimate targets being enemy volunteers engaged in warfare.
The world is too safe for evil disorder and the answer as ever is for the virtuous to take up the sword. War is natural to humanity though the weak and mewling wish to outlaw it, which of course can only be enforced by capability to slay and lay waste the enemy.
It's time to shitcan the (failed) pacifist legacy of the 1960s as a mistake brought on by drugs and deca
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Enough with the Neocon BS .. (Score:2)