The US State Department accused Russia this Friday of a series of “malicious” cyber attacks against European countriesincluding Germany and the Czech Republic.
“The United States Strongly Condemns Malicious Cyber Activity of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of Russia (GRU), also known as APT28, against Germany, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden”said the spokesperson Matthew Miller it’s a statement.
“APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, Strontium and Forest Blizzard, is a Known threat actor with a long history of malicious, nefarious, destabilizing and disruptive behavior,” he continued.
In particular, he said that The United States has linked the group to interference in the 2016 elections. who brought the Republican to power donald trumpand with operations directed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Miller said Washington has worked with Germany to “remediate a network of hundreds of small home office routers that APT28 was using to hide and carry out malicious activity.”
He spoke after Germany and the Czech Republic will blame Russia for the series of recent attacks, prompting the European Union to warn Moscow of the consequences of its “malicious behavior in cyberspace.”
Germany summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires in the country to the Foreign Ministry after Berlin blamed Kremlin-sponsored hackers for a cyberattack last year against members of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD).
“We have summoned the acting chargé d’affaires of the Russian embassy”a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told reporters, adding that the government “will use the full spectrum of measures to deter and respond to Russia’s aggressive behavior in cyberspace”.
The German Foreign Minister, Annalena BaerbockThis Friday, he pointed out to Russian Military Intelligence that he was behind a cyber attack recorded in 2023 and whose objective was the SPD.
“Russian state hackers attacked German cyberspace”asserted Baerbock, who has clarified that said attack, recorded at the beginning of last year, affected the email accounts of high-ranking figures in the party and, therefore, “will have consequences.”
This was expressed during a press conference during his visit to Australia, where he explained that the SPD itself has attributed this cyber attack to a “vulnerability” in terms of security. This problem in the software was “unknown” until the attack occurred, as he has highlighted.
“We can now clearly attribute this attack to the group APT28, controlled by Russia’s Central Intelligence Department, the country’s military intelligence. This is absolutely unacceptable and will not go unpunished,” said Baerbock.
(With information from AFP, EFE and Europa Press)
