On Thursday October 4^th, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt accused Russian military intelligence of conducting « indiscriminate and reckless » cyberattacks against political and sports institutions, companies and media around the world. Amongst the actors targeted by those cyber strikes stand firms in Russia and Ukraine, the US Democratic Party, and a small TV network in the UK. World Anti-Doping Agency computers are also said to have been attacked. Russia was more or less blamed for some of the attacks until today. But for the first time, the UK singles out the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service. Indeed, according to Jeremy Hunt, Russia is responsible for conducting those cyber strikes in order to “try to undermine and interfere in elections in other countries;” and that to do so, the country is “even prepared to damage [its] companies and [its] citizens, ». Some of these cyberattacks had been previously attributed by private sector researchers to Russia. Britain had also attributed other cyber-attacks to Russia.

Adeline SILVA PEREIRA

For further information:

BBC.com:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45741520

The Guardian.com

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/04/uk-accuses-kremlin-of-ordering-series-of-reckless-cyber-attacks

CNN.com:

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/03/uk/uk-russia-cyber-attacks-intl/index.html