MotherBoard: All Signs Point to Russia Being Behind the DNC Hack

[Alfresco]

http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/all-signs-point-to-russia-being-behind-the-dnc-hack

All Signs Point to Russia Being Behind the DNC Hack
By Thomas Rid 25 July 2016

The forensic evidence linking the DNC breach to known Russian operations is very strong. On June 20, two competing cybersecurity companies, Mandiant (part of FireEye) and Fidelis, confirmed CrowdStrike’s initial findings that Russian intelligence indeed hacked the DNC. The forensic evidence that links network breaches to known groups is solid: used and reused tools, methods, infrastructure, even unique encryption keys. For example: in late March the attackers registered a domain with a typo—misdepatrment[.]com—to look suspiciously like the company hired by the DNC to manage its network, MIS Department. They then linked this deceptive domain to a long-known APT 28 so-called X-Tunnel command-and-control IP address, 45.32.129[.]185.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence linking GRU to the DNC hack is the equivalent of identical fingerprints found in two burglarized buildings: a reused command-and-control address—176.31.112[.]10—that was hard coded in a piece of malware found both in the German parliament as well as on the DNC’s servers. Russian military intelligence was identified by the German domestic security agency BfV as the actor responsible for the Bundestag breach. The infrastructure behind the fake MIS Department domain was also linked to the Berlin intrusion through at least one other element, a shared SSL certificate.

Not reacting politically to the DNC hack is setting a dangerous precedent. A foreign agency, exploiting Wikileaks and a cutthroat media marketplace, appears to be carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign in the United States that could escalate next week, next fall, or next time. Trump, ironically, is right: the system is actually rigged.

American inaction now risks establishing a de facto norm that all election campaigns in the future, everywhere, are fair game for sabotage—sabotage that could potentially affect the outcome and tarnish the winner’s legitimacy. Inaction also risks squandering the deterrent effects created by the White House’s reaction to North Korea’s role in the infamous Sony Hack, as well as the US Department of Justice indictments of Chinese and Iranian operatives. Remarkably, so far the only countries that have had the confidence to call out aggressive Russian operations are Germany along with Switzerland and France in a more limited way.

It is time for the United States (and the United Kingdom) to pull their weight: by publishing more evidence, by signalling political consequences for the perpetrators, by treating Wikileaks as a legitimate counter-intelligence target, and by providing not only physical but also improved digital security to candidates and campaigns in the future.

[Cha]

1. We get it.. they don't want Hillary..

Too bad!

Mahalo, Alfresco~

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Why Putin Hates Hillary Clinton

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/why-putin-hates-hillary-clinton-n617236

It's because the former KGB operative hates Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, with such a passion that he wants to embarrass her personally and undermine — if not derail — her presidential campaign, they say.

For a Russian leader who is considered as vain as he is ruthless, Clinton's criticism long ago crossed over from the political into the personal. He carries a grudge against a woman who has publicly compared him to Hitler and expressed doubts that he has a soul.

On one occasion when Clinton suggested a power-hungry Putin was trying to recreate the Soviet Union, "they lit up over that," McFaul recalls, citing meetings with high-level Russian officials. "I was ambassador at the time, and they were livid with her."

Clinton was especially critical of Putin's role in Russia's parliamentary elections in 2011, suggesting they were rigged to favor his political party and Putin's own effort to consolidate power. At a gathering of the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Lithuania that December, Clinton called for an investigation into election "fraud" and criticized what she said were growing restrictions on democracy and human rights.

[Alfresco]

3. They will fail to derail Hillary but...

It's a much bigger issue as summarized by:

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/27/bigger_than_watergate_the_russian_orchestrated_dnc_email_hack_places_our_national_sovereignty_at_stake/

It should be obvious to anyone who’s following this emerging story is that it’s a disqualifying series of events for Trump and his cronies. Though while it won’t end Trump’s campaign, it represents perhaps the story of the year, so far, as well as the biggest political bombshell in recent memory, certainly more potentially devastating than Watergate, given the vast similarities. The only way to be sure the culprits are thwarted is to make sure Trump is not just defeated in November but utterly humiliated by the final vote count. More importantly, it’d signal to Putin and his allies that the American people will not allow him to monkey with our democracy in the same way he’s monkeyed with his own.

One last thing: if you’re only looking at this story as an internal DNC scandal, you’re missing the despotic forest for the trees. We can’t emphasize enough: this story is bigger than Bernie or Hillary. It’s bigger than Trump. It speaks directly to the sovereignty of our electoral process. The sooner it’s treated this way, the better off we’ll be.

[Cha]

4. It's huge.. I saw it starting at the

beginning when wikileaks was warning Joy Reid they would be "monitoring" her.

I said it was the tip of the iceberg.

One last thing: if you’re only looking at this story as an internal DNC scandal, you’re missing the despotic forest for the trees. We can’t emphasize enough: this story is bigger than Bernie or Hillary. It’s bigger than Trump. It speaks directly to the sovereignty of our electoral process. The sooner it’s treated this way, the better off we’ll be.

Yes, it's bigger than Watergate.. It's espionage by a foreign country.

Yes, I get it. Some of the content contained in a handful of the emails (out of a 19,000 email tranche) was fishy in terms of DNC officials expressing dissatisfaction with Bernie Sanders and his campaign. (Bernie’s religious beliefs should never have been discussed, for example.) We’ll circle back to the veracity of the emails momentarily. However, what we know so far greatly outpaces anything damning about the DNC officials themselves. What we know, and what’s rapidly developing by the day, is that it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Putin’s intelligence apparatus broke into the DNC’s network, stole the emails, set up a front account, and handed over the emails to Julian Assange’s Wikileaks organization via that account. We also know that Putin and various Russian oligarchs have been giving money to Donald Trump. And we know that Trump’s foreign policy closely aligns with Putin’s, especially when it comes to the Balkans and NATO, which Trump has repeatedly stated will be allowed to fall to Russian aggression on Trump’s watch.

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/27/bigger_than_watergate_the_russian_orchestrated_dnc_email_hack_places_our_national

Thank you for this.

[waltben]

5. Why is everyone so focused on WHO hacked the DNC instead of WHAT the DNC did?

Yes, it's nice to know Putin hates Clinton, but the seriously larger issue is that the DNC violated it's own rules. Maybe Bernie wouldn't have won anyway, BUT it's still that the DNC is far less democratic than that GOPer bunch - they couldn't stop Trump even though they wanted to, and I'm not talking about superdelegates.

[Omaha Steve]

6. Thanks for posting

I had a DU host tell me I was making a mountain....

[Cha]

7. Different people are focused on both. Focus what you want to focus on.

I care about Russia hacking the DNC to help trump.

We already knew putin hates Hillary.. this is espionage to help the gop candidate trump.

[fleabiscuit]

8. Yes, other than talk email bullshit what is a non-conspiracy story of what they actually did.

[NWCorona]

11. Then why did DWS step down and the DNC apologize to Sanders?

[treestar]

9. LOL

So hacking is nothing? Everyone should put their emails out publicly?

they revealed nothing compared to the fact they were invaded. One email does not reflect on everyone that worked there.

[avaistheone1]

12. There was more than one email which shows there was a pattern of conspiracy at the

DNC. The emails revealed plenty...strategizing against one candidate over another, creating false narratives to make one candidate look weak, creating an inflammatory narrative about one candidate's religion... There is even emails that show one candidate was given access to funds while the other candidate was stymied. This is fraud when the DNC's own bylaws state the organization is to be neutral.

Likely this is only the tip of the iceberg. I believe there is more to come.

[treestar]

13. no links to those emails

and I have a feeling, exaggerated claims to conclude what they did.

[Hortensis]

10. NY TIMES: Spy Agency Consensus Grows That Russia Hacked D.N.C."

WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have told the White House they now have “high confidence” that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee, according to federal officials who have been briefed on the evidence. ...
The assessment by the intelligence community of Russian involvement in the D.N.C. hacking, which largely echoes the findings of private cybersecurity firms that have examined the electronic fingerprints left by the intruders, leaves President Obama and his national security aides with a difficult diplomatic and political decision: whether to publicly accuse the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of engineering the hacking.

Such a public accusation could result in a further deterioration of the already icy relationship between Washington and Moscow, at a moment when the administration is trying to reach an accord with Mr. Putin on a cease-fire in Syria and on other issues. It could also doom any effort to reach some kind of agreement about acceptable behavior in cyberspace, of the kind the United States has been discussing with China.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/spy-agency-consensus-grows-that-russia-hacked-dnc.html