{ "id": "9db26c88-b97d-4300-89f4-0f6441bc91fc", "created_at": "2026-04-06T00:13:33.771275Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T03:23:38.786836Z", "deleted_at": null, "sha1_hash": "d9949e1e2dbd3319bb8be3780766c89c7a5c46cd", "title": "US charges Russian military officers over international hacking and disinformation campaigns", "llm_title": "", "authors": "", "file_creation_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "file_modification_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "file_size": 50570, "plain_text": "US charges Russian military officers over international hacking\r\nand disinformation campaigns\r\nBy Written by Danny Palmer, Senior WriterSenior Writer Oct. 4, 2018 at 8:13 a.m. PT\r\nArchived: 2026-04-05 19:54:26 UTC\r\nThe United States Department of Justice has charged Russian military intelligence officers with international\r\nhacking offences.\r\nSecurity\r\nAll seven defendants are officers in the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), the military intelligence\r\nagency of Russia's armed forces. They've been charged with offences including computer hacking, wire fraud,\r\nidentity theft and money laundering.\r\nThe charges from the United States come as the UK and Australia blamed the Russian GRU for a number of\r\nrecent global cyber attacks.\r\nSome of the charges relate to attacks against the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in an effort to undermine\r\nthe body following the exposure of a Russian state-sponsored athlete doping program.\r\nOthers are in connection with attacks against the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons -- the\r\nbody investigating the Novichok poisoning of former GRU officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in\r\nSalisbury in March this year. However, this hacking campaign was thwarted by the Dutch defense intelligence\r\nservice\r\nSEE: A winning strategy for cybersecurity (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF\r\n(TechRepublic)\r\nSpear-phishing emails, spoofed domains, fictitious identities and malware were all used in an effort to remotely\r\nsteal credentials, which led to the leaking of private and medical information of 250 athletes from almost 30\r\ncountries.\r\nIn cases where remote attacks weren't successful, GRU officers were sent abroad to conduct hacking operations\r\nagainst hotel Wi-Fi networks used by anti-doping officials during the Olympic Games.\r\nOne of these saw officers deployed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August 2016, in an intrusion that resulted in an\r\nInternational Olympic Committee official's credentials being captured and used to gain unauthorised access to\r\nhttps://www.zdnet.com/article/us-charges-russian-military-officers-over-international-hacking-and-disinformation-campaigns/\r\nPage 1 of 3\n\naccounts.\r\nAttackers also compromised equipment used in closed access Wi-Fi networks of a hotel hosting an anti-doping\r\nconference in Lausunna, Switzerland in Septmeber 2016. This compromised network was used to steal credentials\r\nand compromise members of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport.\r\nAs part of the campaign, the GRU officers set up a Twitter account claiming to be the 'Fancy Bears' Hack Team\r\nand selectively released stolen information, which had often been modified in an effort to besmirch or undermine\r\nparticular athletes.\r\nAccording to the indictment, operations were running from December 2014 until at least May this year, and\r\ninvolved \"persistent and sophisticated computer intrusions\" based on strategic interest to the Russian government.\r\n\"The actions of these seven hackers, all working as officials for the Russian government, were criminal,\r\nretaliatory, and damaging to innocent victims and the United States' economy, as well as to world organizations,\"\r\nsaid FBI director Christopher Wray.\r\n\"We worked closely with our international partners to identify the actors and disrupt their criminal campaign --\r\nand today, we are sending this message: The FBI will not permit any government, group, or individual to threaten\r\nour people, our country, or our partners. We will work tirelessly to find them, stop them, and bring them to\r\njustice,\" he added.\r\nSEE: 10 ways to raise your users' cybersecurity IQ (free PDF)\r\nThe defendants are all Russian nationals based in Russia and are Aleksei Sergeyevich Morenets, 41, Evgenii\r\nMikhaylovich Serebriakov, 37, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov, 32, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev, 30, Dmitriy\r\nSergeyevich Badin, 27 , Oleg Mikhaylovich Sotnikov, 46, and Alexey Valerevich Minin, 46. They are all GRU\r\nofficers.\r\nEach defendant is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, which carries a\r\nmaximum sentence of five years in prison, one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to\r\ncommit money laundering, both of which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years.\r\n\"We want the hundreds of victims of these Russian hackers to know that we will do everything we can to hold\r\nthese criminals accountable for their crimes,\" said U.S. Attorney Scott Brady.\r\nHowever, like the recent indictment of a North Korean hacker for WannaCry, it's very unlikely anything will come\r\nfrom this announcement -- Russia will not send its citizens to go on trial in the United States.\r\nREAD MORE ON CYBER CRIME\r\nCyber security: Nation-state cyber attacks threaten everyone, warns ex-GCHQ boss\r\nHere's what happens during a social engineering cyber-attack (TechRepublic)\r\nCyber defence: We'll hack back at attackers, says US\r\nRussian hackers target US athlete information, anti-doping agency says [CNET]\r\nCyber security strategy must be a board-level issue\r\nhttps://www.zdnet.com/article/us-charges-russian-military-officers-over-international-hacking-and-disinformation-campaigns/\r\nPage 2 of 3\n\nSource: https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-charges-russian-military-officers-over-international-hacking-and-disinformation-campaigns/\r\nhttps://www.zdnet.com/article/us-charges-russian-military-officers-over-international-hacking-and-disinformation-campaigns/\r\nPage 3 of 3", "extraction_quality": 1, "language": "EN", "sources": [ "ETDA" ], "references": [ "https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-charges-russian-military-officers-over-international-hacking-and-disinformation-campaigns/" ], "report_names": [ "us-charges-russian-military-officers-over-international-hacking-and-disinformation-campaigns" ], "threat_actors": [ { "id": "5d2bd376-fcdc-4c6a-bc2c-17ebbb5b81a4", "created_at": "2022-10-25T16:07:23.667223Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:04.705778Z", "deleted_at": null, "main_name": "GCHQ", "aliases": [ "Government Communications Headquarters", "Operation Socialist" ], "source_name": "ETDA:GCHQ", "tools": [ "Prax", "Regin", "WarriorPride" ], "source_id": "ETDA", "reports": null } ], "ts_created_at": 1775434413, "ts_updated_at": 1775791418, "ts_creation_date": 0, "ts_modification_date": 0, "files": { "pdf": "https://archive.orkl.eu/d9949e1e2dbd3319bb8be3780766c89c7a5c46cd.pdf", "text": "https://archive.orkl.eu/d9949e1e2dbd3319bb8be3780766c89c7a5c46cd.txt", "img": "https://archive.orkl.eu/d9949e1e2dbd3319bb8be3780766c89c7a5c46cd.jpg" } }