Britain, Australia and New Zealand have accused Russian military intelligence of carrying out a worldwide campaign of “malicious” cyber attacks, including the hacking of the US Democratic National Committee in 2016.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a statement Thursday that the country’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) had found that Russian GRU intelligence service operatives were behind cyber attacks believed to have cost the global economy millions of dollars.
Australia and New Zealand released similar statements alleging that their own intelligence agencies had found evidence of Russian involvement in the same attacks on political, business, media and sporting institutions.
Britain, Australia and New Zealand are all members of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance, which also includes the US and Canada.
“The GRU’s actions are reckless and indiscriminate: they try to undermine and interfere in elections in other countries; they are even prepared to damage Russian companies and Russian citizens,” Hunt said in a statement.
“This pattern of behaviour demonstrates their desire to operate without regard to international law or established norms and to do so with a feeling of impunity and without consequences.” Read more