Washington | Six Russian military intelligence agents have been indicted in the United States for global cyber attacks, which have targeted Ukraine’s electricity grid, the elections in France in 2017 and the Olympic Games in 2018, the United States Department of Justice revealed on Monday. Justice.
These agents “are accused of carrying out the most destructive and disruptive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group,” John Demers, head of national security at the ministry, told a press conference.
These hackers are accused of having carried out their operations between 2015 and 2019. According to American justice, their first feat of arms was an attack on the Ukrainian electricity grid, which had deprived the population of heating in full. winter.
They are then suspected of having carried out the attack on the NotPetya malware which, in June 2017, had infected thousands of computers around the world, disrupting critical infrastructures, such as controls at the site of the nuclear accident in Chernobyl and the ports of Bombay and Amsterdam.
“The defendants also supported a hacking and leaking operation in the days leading up to the 2017 French elections,” added Mr. Demers.
In 2018, phishing campaigns targeted the Olympic Winter Games in South Korea, in which the Russian delegation, accused of doping, was unable to participate.