A Russian hacking team known as Cold River has targeted US Nuclear Brookhaven, Argonne and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. Between August and September, Vladimir Putin indicated Russia would be willing to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory. Hackers Cold River was discovered to create fake login pages for each institution and emailed nuclear scientists to make them reveal their passwords. It was yet to be determined why these US labs were the attackers’ primary target and if their intrusion was successful in any way.
Cold River is a group that follows Russia’s agendas and invasions of Western allies of Ukraine. This group’s name first appeared when their hack involved Britain’s Foreign Office, which was then discovered that several high-profile incidents had already occurred before that. Traced email accounts were used in its hacking operations between 2015 and 2020 for an IT worker in the Russian city of Syktyvkar. “This is one of the most important hacking groups you’ve never heard of,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
“They are involved in directly supporting Kremlin information operations.” Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the domestic security agency that, also conducts espionage campaigns for Moscow.
SOURCE: REUTERS | JANUARY 10 2023
