2016.12.09 Sophisticated Russians Hack

From iGeek
Jump to: navigation, search

WaPo claims that a sophisticated attack by Russians to hack the election happened: security experts laugh it off as both amateur hour of an attack (off-the-shelf and out-of-date root-kit with a spear-phishing campaign), fuzzy ties to Russians, no hacking of the actual election (only leaking the truth via DNC emails: aka investigative journalism), and no evidence that they were the source for Wikileaks.


Russian Hackers: The Evidence
Fallout.jpg
The sum total of the "evidence" released is:
  • (a) some of the malware touched a Russian email service that a company once used, that once contracted for the Russians (Fancy Bear)
  • (b) one of the hackers used the handle "Iron Felix", a famous Russian secret police force founder
  • (c) some Russians said they "felt good" about the results of the election
  • (d) WaPo ran editorials about the sophisticated Russian hack.

Counter to that was Security experts (including self) laughed off the evidence as weak sauce:

  • The server (which was never released to the FBI to investigate), showed that the download was too fast for an internet connection (and looked like a thumb drive copy)
  • Wikileaks said it was a Democrat insider (they've never been caught in a lie: their credibility is critical to their existence)
  • When Seth Rich was killed, Wikileaks implied that he had been the leaker, and offered a reward for catching his murderer
  • The FBI director had internally closed the investigation months BEFORE interviewing Hillary, and the FBI got caught offering a Russian Hacker a deal (money, free apartment, citizenship), if he'd falsely confessed to being the source of the hack, and many of the agencies that were credited with agreeing with national intelligence, said they never saw the evidence or signed off on anything.

So far, no one has come up with evidence of a hack. more...

GeekPirate.small.png

📚 References