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Russian military hackers allegedly tried to disrupt French election, Winter Olympics

Russian military officials tried to thwart a French presidential election, the Winter Olympics and US businesses in “the most disruptive and destructive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group,” the feds said Monday in announcing indictments against the men.

Six current and former members of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate — a government military intelligence agency known as the GRU — used “some of the world’s most destructive malware to date’’ to hack into targets’ systems starting in 2015, US officials said.

“No country has weaponized its cyber capabilities as maliciously or irresponsibly as Russia, wantonly causing unprecedented damage to pursue small tactical advantages and to satisfy fits of spite,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers, a top US national security official, said in a statement.

The indictment does not accuse the Russian agents of interfering in a US election — although one of the men was among those charged with hacking in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“We make no election-interference allegations here,’’ Demers said.

In terms of the upcoming November elections, “We haven’t seen anything that caused us to question what we’ve, I think, repeatedly said and what the intelligence communities repeatedly said: that Americans should be confident that a vote cast for their candidate will be counted for that candidate,’’ Demers said.

But the group of military hackers launched “spearphishing campaigns and related hack-and-leak efforts’’ targeting French President Emmanuel Macron and his party during the country’s 2017 elections, the US Justice Department said.

While some of the Russian group’s crimes were already known, exactly who  orchestrated them hadn’t been spelled out by authorities.

US businesses whose computers were infected by the Russian spyware included a major drugmaker, the Heritage Valley Health System in Pennsylvania and FedEx delivery subsidiary TNT Express, the feds said.

Winter Olympics
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The targeted healthcare system had two hospitals, 60 offices and 18 satellite facilities affected, US officials said.

“The attack caused the unavailability of patient lists, patient history, physical examination files and laboratory records,” they said.

The hospital network’s “mission-critical computer systems,” including for cardiology, radiology and surgery, were out for about a week, while its administrative online equipment was down for nearly a month, the feds said.

The losses from the June 2017 attacks on the US firms totaled nearly $1 billion, they said.

Demers said US social-media giants helped in the investigation.

“I’d like to express the department’s appreciation for assistance from the private sector, such as Cisco’s TALOS intelligent group, Facebook, Google and Twitter, for investigating and disrupting this cyber threat,’’ he said at a press conference.

It is unclear what the fallout from the indictments might be. The suspects are believed to be in Russia, which has no extradition treaty with the US.

The Russian hacking effort also allegedly included disrupting “thousands of computers” involved in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea — which Russian athletes were banned from amid a doping scheme operated by their government.

Those whose computers were targeted included athletes, members of the International Olympic Committee and South Korean officials, the US Justice Department said.

“Their cyber attack combined the emotional maturity of a petulant child with the resources of a nation state,’’ Demers said of the hacking of the Olympics.

The suspects also launched “ spearphishing campaigns” in April 2018 on British and international probes into the nerve-agent poisoning of Russian dissident Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK, according to US officials.

The group’s subterfuge continued at least till October 2019, the feds said.

That’s when the Russians targeted “government and non-government Web sites in the country of Georgia,’’ they said.

The power grid in Ukraine also was in the suspects’ cross-hairs, with widespread blackouts resulting from the hacking, the feds said.

Computers with the country’s treasury department also were allegedly targeted.

The suspects are charged in the indictment with conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and false registration of a domain name.

“The FBI has repeatedly warned that Russia is a highly capable cyber adversary, and the information revealed in this indictment illustrates how pervasive and destructive Russia’s cyber activities truly are,” FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said in the release.

“But this indictment also highlights the FBI’s capabilities. … As demonstrated today, we will relentlessly pursue those who threaten the United States and its citizens.”

With Post wires