President Putin blames Patriotic Russian hackers for recent Election attacks

Russian President Putin says patriotic hackers may have powered attacks against foreign countries and denied Russia involvement.

President Vladimir Putin says patriotic hackers may have launched cyber attacks against foreign countries and but denied Russia involvement in cyber espionage campaigns.

Source NY Times

Russian state-sponsored APT groups area accused of continuous interferences with 2016 US Presidential Election elections in the United States, and experts also speculate the involvement of the same hackers in French elections.

Putin told journalists on Thursday at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg that it is impossible to predict the operations of Russian hackers against the upcoming elections in Germany because hackers are unpredictable like artists.

“If artists get up in the morning feeling good, all they do all day is paint,” Putin said. “The same goes for hackers. They got up today and read that something is going on internationally. If they are feeling patriotic they will start contributing, as they believe, to the justified fight against those speaking ill of Russia.”

President Putin excludes his country engagement in cyber espionage against foreign governments, he also highlighted that hackers could use false flags to make hard the attribution of a cyber attack.

Putin also excludes that cyber attacks against politicians and parties can have a real impact on elections.

“We do not engage in this activity at the government level and are not going to engage in it. On the contrary, we try to prevent this from happening in our country,” he said. “At any rate, I believe that no hackers can affect the election campaign in any European country, nor in Asia or in America.”

To highlight the complexity of attributing a cyber attacks let me add that while President Putin made the declaration on the patriotic hackers, the head of the French government’s cyber security agency, which investigated leaks from President Emmanuel Macron‘s election campaign, said the French intelligence has found no trace of a Russian hacking groups behind the cyber attack.

“In an interview in his office Thursday with The Associated Press, Guillaume Poupard said the Macron campaign hack “was so generic and simple that it could have been practically anyone.” reported the Time.

Back to the declarations of President Putin, Thomas Rid, a professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, speculate they are part of the Russian strategic.

Almost any security firm has linked the APT 28, APT29 and Turla campaigns to Russian Government, the declaration of President Putin do not convince us, but without solid evidence we cannot contradict them.

[adrotate banner=”9″]

[adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Patriotic hackers, President Putin)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.