A spokesman for the Russian Federal Security Service told SCMagazineUK.com that Russian hacker groups Energetic Bear, Dragonfly and some others are considering engaging their activities against selected Western countries. The current financial crisis in Russia, seen locally as having been caused by Western sanctions, has resulted in massive job cuts in the Russian IT industry, which in turn has resulted in an increase in the number of hacker groups in Russia.
In addition, there is reported to have been a significant growth in demand for hacker services in recent years from some entities affilated with the Russian government.
Oleg Demidov, a senior consultant of PIR Center, an independent non-governmental organisation, which carries out research activities in the field of cyber-security, told SC that in recent year Russian hackers have started to pose a serious threat to critical elements of the military and civil infrastructure of Western countries, while their schemes of attack differ from those used by hacker groups from China and other countries.
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Analysts at PIR-center told SC that as usual among the potential targets of Russian hackers could be the US Pentagon and other US military entities. In July this year hackers already conducted a series of attacks on the Pentagon, which resulted in a break-in of the Pentagon’s computer system and the theft of personal correspondence of employees of the department that had not been classified as secret. According to an official spokesman of Pentagon, the attacks were conducted from Russia.
Full article: Russian hackers plan new attacks on Western military and civil infrastructure (SC Magazine UK)
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