{"id":8884,"date":"2020-05-27T18:57:26","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T15:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.media\/?p=8884"},"modified":"2020-05-28T00:59:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T21:59:39","slug":"kremlin-backed-hacking-group-targets-power-and-water-sector-of-germany-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/kremlin-backed-hacking-group-targets-power-and-water-sector-of-germany-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Kremlin-Backed Hacking Group Targets Power and Water Sector of Germany, Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

A hacking group linked with the Russian government has reportedly carried out a series of attacks on energy, water, and power sectors of Germany, cybersecurity-focused outlet Cyberscoop reported<\/a> on May 26.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

An anonymous German government advisory told Cyberscoop that internal investigations earlier this year indicated \u201clongstanding compromises\u201d at a slew of German companies operating in the aforementioned industries.<\/p>\n

Berserk Bear\u2019s Systematic Attacks Against Energy Companies<\/h2>\n

German authorities tend to believe that the efforts to compromise the country\u2019s critical infrastructure were taken by the Berserk Bear hacking group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe attackers\u2019 goal is to use publicly available but also specially written malware to permanently anchor themselves in the IT network, steal information, or even gain access to productive systems,\u201d<\/strong> the advisory reportedly said.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nonetheless, there was ostensibly no evidence of a disruptive attack on the companies\u2019 industrial networks.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Germany placed responsibility for large-scale cyberattacks on its energy providers on Berserk Bear. Previously, Germany\u2019s Federal Office for Information Security claimed<\/a> that the group conducted a widespread and systematic attack against the country\u2019s energy networks throughout 2018.<\/p>\n

The attack was also unsuccessful, the agency said, at the time, with energy grids remained largely unaffected by Berserk Bear. The director of Germany\u2019s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution said that the \u201cmodus operandi\u201d of the hackers \u201cis a major indicator that points to Russian control of the offensive campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hacktivist Group\u2019s Extensive Operations Around the World<\/h2>\n

In 2018, cybersecurity tech company CrowdStrike released a report<\/a>, where it examined the activity of some of the world\u2019s leading government-backed hacking groups<\/a>, including Berserk Bear. CrowdStrike wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Berserk Bear adversary group has strong ties to Moscow, Russia, as well as technical and operational overlaps with other likely Russian state-sponsored groups such as Energetic Bear, Team Bear, and Voodoo Bear. The targeting profile of the group observed by CrowdStrike appears to align very closely with the likely collection priorities of Russian intelligence.\u201d<\/i><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the report, Berserk Bear\u2019s activity began increasing in spring 2017, when it launched and maintained extensive operations worldwide throughout the year. The group was reportedly involved in high-profile activity against critical infrastructure entities in the United States and Europe and deployed novel techniques aimed at compromising SMB credentials at targeted organizations.<\/p>\n

Written by Ana Alexandre<\/i><\/p>\n

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A hacking group linked with the Russian government has reportedly carried out a series of attacks on energy, water, and power sectors of Germany, cybersecurity-focused outlet Cyberscoop reported on May 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"human_written","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1111,109,43,27],"class_list":["post-8884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-cybersecurity","tag-germany","tag-hackers","tag-russia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"714","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8887,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8884\/revisions\/8887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}