The NSA Is Likely 'Hacking Back' Russia's Cyber Squads

[uawchild]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by mcar (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: ABC News

U.S. government hackers at the National Security Agency are likely targeting Russian government-linked hacking teams to see once and for all if they're responsible for the massive breach at the Democratic National Committee, according to three former senior intelligence officials. It's a job that the current head of the NSA's elite hacking unit said they've been called on to do many times before.

Robert Joyce, chief of the NSA's shadowy Tailored Access Operations, declined to comment on the DNC hack specifically, but said in general that the NSA has technical capabilities and legal authorities that allow the agency to "hack back" suspected hacking groups, infiltrating their systems to gather intelligence about their operations in the wake of a cyber attack.

"In terms of the foreign intelligence mission, one of the things we have to do is try to understand who did a breach, who is responsible for a breach," Joyce told ABC News in a rare interview this week. "So we will use the NSA's authorities to pursue foreign intelligence to try to get back into that collection, to understand who did it and get the attribution. That's hard work, but that's one of the responsibilities we have."

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/nsa-hacking-back-russias-cyber-squads/story?id=41010651

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Good!

[rjsquirrel]

1. Never thought I'd say this but

GO NSA GO!

[Native]

10. Seriously!

[Ligyron]

2. Yeah, they may even have to pull a few off spying on Black Lives Matter I hear. n/t

[Sunlei]

3. The best thing is when those two russian state groups 'work' is publicly revealed to the world.

They pulled the exact same 'wikileak' dump of stolen emails on Turkey, right after the "surprise coup" (where the little soldiers were told it was a practice exercise) and that timed wiki dump- made their leader arrest thousands of their countries professionals like teachers.


"....last year successfully infiltrated the unclassified networks of the White House, State Department, and US Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition to the US government, they have targeted organizations across the Defense, Energy, Extractive, Financial, Insurance, Legal, Manufacturing Media, Think Tanks, Pharmaceutical, Research and Technology industries, along with Universities.

Victims have also been observed in Western Europe, Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Turkey and Central Asian countries"
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/

[paleotn]

5. The Cold War has gone cyber...

....not just between us and Russia, but China, North Korea, Iran... It's where the next great war will develop long before the bombs and bullets start flying.

[BlueEye]

4. The United States has extensive cyberwarfare capabilities. We just don't like to talk about it.

Stuxnet Virus anyone?

I hope both sides stick to hacking databases. If they start to hit infrastructure, it could get ugly.

[proverbialwisdom]

11. New film by Alex Gibney currently in theaters and on demand. Not sure what to make of it, personally

http://www.zerodaysfilm.com/

[paleotn]

6. Our national security operations are highly active in cyberspace....

...and have been for some time. TAO is just the tip of the iceberg NSA doesn't mind the average citizen knowing about.

[judesedit]

7. Hopefully...or they did and they have another foreign spy among their staff.

[PSPS]

8. Don't count on it

The highly destructive and ever-evolving ransomware that's been going around comes from Russia and, except in the very first iteration a few years ago, it's been impossible to find the servers with the encryption keys.

[cstanleytech]

9. Likely they are but regardless its not LBN since its an opinion piece. nt

[backscatter712]

12. Good. That's what they're supposed to be doing.

They're an agent tasked with electronic intel and dirty-tricks, targeted against America's foreign adversaries.

When they're doing that instead of targeting American citizens, they're doing the job they should be doing.

[getagrip_already]

13. Hopefully they are also looking at traffic...

To and from the Trump campaign in all formats...

Probably something really interesting there wrt foreign coordination. Remember they listen to every conversation and comm of any kind to overseas contacts, even if it's a citizen on one end.

[mcar]

14. Locking

Violates the Statement of Purpose for this forum. Consider reposting in GD.