The U.S. Justice Department filed criminal charges against seven Russian intelligence officers n connection with hacking the computer networks of international anti-doping agencies and officials, as well as organizations investigating Russia’s use of chemical weapons.
Assistant Attorney General John Demers, who announced the charges Thursday, said the Russians belonged to GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, and some of them traveled abroad on “close access” teams to conduct on-site hacking operations.
The seven were indicted by a grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania for computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identify theft, and money laundering.
Three of the Russian officers were previously charged in a separate indictment brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in July in connection with the hacking of Democratic computers during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Demers said the latest indictment did not stem from the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the election.
“Nonetheless, these two indictments charge overlapping groups of conspirators,” Demers said. “And they evince some of the same methods of computer intrusion and the same overarching Russian strategic goal: to pursue its interests through illegal influence and disinformation operations aimed at muddying or altering perceptions of the truth.”
The alleged cyber operation lasted from December 2014 to May 2018 and targeted U.S. and international anti-doping agencies, sporting federations such as FIFA, anti-doping officials, and nearly 250 athletes from about 30 countries.
According to the indictment, the organizations and officials were targeted for exposing Russia’s state-sponsored athlete doping program and their support for a ban on Russian athletes in the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The agents also allegedly targeted Westinghouse Electronic Corporation, a U.S. nuclear energy company; the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international watchdog that is investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the March 2018 poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia; and the Spiez Swiss Chemical laboratory, an OPCW lab that analyzed the chemical agent connected to the poisonings of Skripal and others in Britain.
“The actions of these seven hackers, all working as officials for the Russian government, were criminal, retaliatory, and damaging to innocent victims and the United States’ economy, as well as to world organizations,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
In a joint statement, British Prime Minister Theresa May and her Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte condemned what they called the GRU’s “unacceptable cyber activities.”
“This attempt, to access the secure systems of an international organization working to rid the world of chemical weapons, demonstrates the GRU’s disregard for the global values and rules that keep us all safe,” May and Rutte said in a statement.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry denied the accusations, dismissing them as “fantasies.”
The alleged hacking was often carried out remotely from Russia, according to the indictment. But if a remote hacking attempt was unsuccessful, “close access” teams of agents would be dispatched to the physical site to use local Wi-Fi networks.
“After a successful hacking operation, the close access team transferred such access to conspirators in Russia for exploitation,” according to the indictment.
The Russians then used social media accounts maintained by a special GRU unit to publicly release information, including medical records, about the athletes and others through a fake hacktivist group calling itself the “Fancy Bears’ Hack Team. According to the indictment, the defendants allegedly exchanged emails and private messages with about 186 reporters to amplify public exposure.
The attempted cyberattack on the computer networks of OPCW in the Hague came in 2018 after the poisoning of Skripal. A “close access” team was used in the operation.
Prosecutors said the four agents involved in the attack planned to travel to Spiez, Switzerland, where an OPCW lab was analyzing the chemical agent used in the Skripal poisoning. But the four agents were caught red-handed, according to a joint Dutch/British intelligence operation, and later expelled to Russia.
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