Six Russian military officers have been charged in the US with carrying out ‘cynical and reckless’ global cyber attacks, including attempts to disrupt next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
British and US officials said the attacks were conducted by Unit 74455 of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.
In an indictment unsealed today, the US Justice Department said six members of the unit had played key roles in attacks on targets ranging from the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea to the 2017 French elections.
British officials said the GRU hackers had also conducted ‘cyber reconnaissance’ operations against organisers of the 2020 Tokyo Games, which were originally scheduled to be held this year but postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.
They declined to give specific details about the attacks or whether they were successful, but said they had targeted Games organisers, logistics suppliers and sponsors.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: ‘The GRU’s actions against the Olympic and Paralympic Games are cynical and reckless. We condemn them in the strongest possible terms.’
FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said: ‘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.’
Russia was banned from the world’s top sporting events for four years in December over widespread doping offences, including the Tokyo Games which were originally scheduled for this year but postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The attacks on the 2020 Games are the latest in a string of hacking attempts against international sporting organisations that Western officials say have been orchestrated by Russia since its doping scandal erupted five years ago. Moscow has repeatedly denied the allegations.
The British Government says it has evidence that the GRU carried out ‘cyber reconnaissance’ against organisers, logistics services and sponsors of the Olympics and Paralympics before they were postponed to next year
A poster showing six wanted Russian military intelligence officers is displayed as Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division John Demers takes the podium to speak at a news conference at the Department of Justice
Britain and the US today said those attacks included a hack of the 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in South Korea, which compromised hundreds of computers, took down Internet access and disrupted broadcast feeds.
The attack in South Korea had previously been linked to Russia by cybersecurity researchers but was made to look like the work of Chinese or North Korean hackers, Britain’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
‘The attacks on the 2020 Summer Games are the latest in a campaign of Russian malicious activity against the Olympic and Paralympic Games,’ it said.
‘The UK is confirming for the first time today the extent of GRU targeting of the 2018 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea.’
The indictment accuses the defendants, all current and former officers in the GRU, in destructive attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.
It also accuses the officers of involvement in a hack-and-leak effort directed at the political party of French President Emmanuel Macron in the days leading up to the 2017 election.
The indictment also alleges they impeded an investigation into the suspected novichok poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Skripal in 2018.
It does not charge the defendants in connection with interference in US elections, though the officers are part of the same military intelligence unit that prosecutors say interfered in the 2016 presidential election by hacking Democratic email accounts.
FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich (left) said indictment shows ‘how destructive Russia’s cyber activities truly are’. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (right) condemned Russia’s ‘cynical and reckless’ cyber attacks on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2017 French election
The 50-page indictment, filed in federal court in Pittsburgh, focuses instead on attacks that prosecutors said were aimed at promoting Russian’s own geopolitical interests.
Those include cyber attacks that targeted the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, where Russian athletes were banned because of a state-sponsored doping effort.
‘No country has weaponized its cyber capabilities as maliciously and irresponsibly as Russia, wantonly causing unprecedented collateral damage to pursue small tactical advantages as fits of spite,’ said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official.
Russia’s latest ban was handed down last December, barring athletes from competing for four years over doping under its colours, including at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, when they take place next year.
It came almost exactly two years after a similar ban stoped Russia from being represented in Pyeongchang.
The Foreign Office says that Russian hackers also targeted the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Pyeongchang in South Korea, including pretending to be working for North Korea and China in an attack on the opening ceremony (pictured)
It means the Russian flag and national anthem will also not be allowed at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and the Beijing Winter Olympics.
But athletes untainted by the scandal will be allowed to compete independently under a neutral flag, as was the case during the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and last summer’s World Athletics Championships in Doha.
The World Anti-Doping Agency executive committee confirmed the decision at the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The committee reached a unanimous decision to punish Russia after accusing Moscow of falsifying data from an anti-doping laboratory.
At the time Kremlin sports minister Pavel Kolobkov attributed the discrepancies in the laboratory data to technical issues and said the ban was politically motivated.
The state-run doping programme was exposed by media and WADA investigations after Russia hosted the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.