The United States Department of Justice indicted six Russian officers thought to be responsible for several of the most destructive cyberattacks over the last decade.
All six hackers are officers in Unit 74455 of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), a military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, also known as Sandworm Team, Telebots, Voodoo Bear, and Iron Viking.
The indictment charges the officers with hacking activity dating from November 2015 though October 2019 targeting Ukraine, Georgia, France, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States on behalf of the Russian government.
“Their computer attacks used some of the world’s most destructive malware to date, including: KillDisk and Industroyer, which each caused blackouts in Ukraine; NotPetya, which caused nearly $1 billion in losses to the three victims identified in the indictment alone; and Olympic Destroyer, which disrupted thousands of computers used to support the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics,” stated the DOJ’s official press release announcing the indictment.
“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,” said FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich.
Read the full indictment here.
