US charges five Russian military hackers with targeting Ukraine's government with destructive malware
The U.S. government indictment demonstrated deep knowledge of the Russian spies' activities, including their real-world meetings at a cafe in Moscow.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice accused five members of Russia’s military intelligence agency of hacking several Ukrainian government agencies, an unnamed U.S. government agency in Maryland and computers belonging to 26 NATO countries, among other victims.
The DOJ announced the indictment of the five members of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, also known as GRU, and in particular its hacking Unit 29155. The indictment names Russian GRU colonel and commanding officer of cyber operations, Yuriy Denisov; lieutenants Vladislav Borovkov, Denis Denisenko, Dmitriy Goloshubov and Nikolay Korchagin; and a civilian co-conspirator, Amin Stigal, who was previously indicted for some of the same crimes.
Prosecutors allege that the six indicted individuals were behind the WhisperGate cyberattack, an operation that was designed to appear like a ransomware attack on the Ukrainian government, but was actually a destructive attack that would make the targeted computers unusable. The Russian government has been accused of launching WhisperGate in support of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.