U.S. charges 'petulant' Russian GRU hackers
The United States and Britain on Monday condemned what they said were a litany of malicious cyberattacks orchestrated by Russian military intelligence, including attempts to disrupt next year's Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
"Their cyberattack combined the emotional maturity of a petulant child with the resources of a nation state," said Justice Department Assistant Attorney General John Demers of the cyberattack on the 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in South Korea, which compromised hundreds of computers, took down Internet access and disrupted broadcast feeds.
U.S. officials said the attacks were conducted by Unit 74455 of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, also known as the Main Centre for Special Technologies.
British officials said the GRU hackers had also conducted "cyber reconnaissance" operations against organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Games, which were originally scheduled to be held this year but postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The attacks on the 2020 Games are the latest in a string of hacking attempts against international sporting organizations that Western officials and cybersecurity experts say have been orchestrated by Russia since its doping scandal erupted five years ago. Moscow has repeatedly denied the allegations.
