Russian Officials Charged For Crypto-Funded Elections Interference
In the latest crypto news, the United States Department of Justice has decided to release an indictment charging at least 12 Russians for committing federal crimes. Their exploits were reportedly funded by cryptocurrencies, with the goal of “interfering” the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
Hacking Computer Networks
According to the department’s announcement, Russian officials from two units of the country’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) utilized digital currencies like Bitcoin. The latter is believed to have been mined and acquired via “other means” and is used to fuel efforts of hacking into computer networks associated with Democratic Party Hilary Clinton’s campaign, as well as the U.S. elections-related state boards and technology companies.
A grand jury in the District of Columbia, including the FBI’s cyber teams based in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and the National Security Division, revealed that the aforementioned officials used digital assets in buying accounts and servers. Through this, they were able to illegally access the associated networks through what is called a spearphishing campaign. The officials then decided to acquire “thousands of stolen emails and documents,” all of which they released via the domain DCLeaks.com. They even promote themselves as the so-called “American hacktivists.”
The Indictment
The Department of Justice said that the indictment does not necessarily claim all of the above-mentioned alleged activities, let alone establish the idea that these activities altered the vote count or changed the outcome of the said elections. The indictment, however, consists of 11 criminal charges, and it already includes the claim that the Russian officials laundered more than $95,000 through digital assets. By doing so, they were able to fund each of their hacking activity accordingly.
The DoJ notes that the BTC mining activities, which were used to pay for the DCLeaks.com domain, also funded the officials’ spearphishing attacks. It is worth noting that this is not the first time the department worked against such exploits. It already involved itself in cryptocurrency-related investigations, especially since the governing body decided to shift its focus to both Bitcoin and Ethereum price manipulation. This focus began sometime in May and has since then remained a powerhouse in the department’s atmosphere. Earlier this week, U.S. president Donald Trump released an executive order that enabled a new anti-crime task force to be formed. It is meant to focus largely on digital currency fraud. This is just one of the many steps the United States government is taking in order to cover every possible exploit relating to cryptocurrencies.