The US Department of Justice, the FBI and international allies have discovered and dismantled a worldwide Russian cyber weapon.
That’s what U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray said during a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
Significant number of spies at the embassy
The cyber weapon was a so-called botnet, which had infected thousands of electronic devices worldwide. The global botnet is said to have been controlled by the GRU – Russia’s military intelligence service.
– Thanks to close collaboration with our international partners, we were able to detect that thousands of network devices were infected. We were then able to abolish GRU’s control over these units before the botnet could be used as a weapon, said Minister of Justice Garland.
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– Avoid sanctions
US authorities opened the press conference by announcing that they have charged the mega-rich and Putin-friendly oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev.
“This is the first time the United States has targeted an oligarch after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Justice Minister Garland said during a news conference.
The media mogul Malofeyev has been subject to Western – and in particular American – sanctions since 2014, and is accused of having evaded and tried to evade these sanctions.
Punishes Putin’s daughters
In the years since he was sanctioned, Malofeyev has obviously broken these sanctions repeatedly. By doing so, his media companies have been able to help spread Russian propaganda, said Lisa Monaco, the US Deputy Secretary of Justice, during the press conference.
Ukraine accuses Malofeyev of setting up and funding illegal paramilitary groups in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas.
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– We will find you
Earlier this week, US authorities, with the help of Spanish authorities, seized the mega-yacht “Tango”, owned by oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, a close ally of Putin.
Due to his close connection to the Russian president, Vekselberg has been subject to sanctions by the United States since 2018.
Russian horror poison: – Putin is terrified
The screw has been tightened further after the invasion of Ukraine, and many countries no longer want him as a guest, wrote Dagbladet Børsen last week when they visited Vekselberg’s luxury home in Switzerland.
Justice Minister Merrick Garland then issued a stern warning to the oligarchs, who are now trying to evade US and Western sanctions:
– It does not matter how far you sail your yachts. It does not matter how well you cover your funds. It does not matter how well you construct your malicious software and cover your activities: the Department of Justice will use all means to find you, disrupt your malicious plans and hold you accountable, Garland said.
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– Damages for 90 billion
The malicious botnet had infected network devices in primarily smaller companies and businesses.
The Ministry of Justice and the FBI believe that the botnet’s intention was to carry out a massive so-called DDoS attack, a denial of service attack.
Commits the most abuse
A DDoS attack is used to flood a website or other resource on the web, and the effect is that you do not gain access to this page or resource, according to nettvett.no, which is run by NorSIS, a Norwegian non-profit organization.
Had the Russian botnet succeeded in its alleged plans, it could have caused damage of about $ 10 billion, just under $ 90 billion, according to the FBI.
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