(Trends Wide) — The FBI announced Tuesday that it has broken a network of hacked computers that Russian spies have used for years to steal sensitive information from at least 50 countries, including governments of NATO nations.
The move appears to be a blow to Russia’s national intelligence service, the FSB, which has allegedly used this sophisticated hacking tool to infiltrate US and Western diplomatic and military agencies for nearly two decades. This is the latest move by the US Department of Justice to more aggressively pursue foreign spy and criminal networks through the use of bespoke FBI tools.
The FBI on Monday resorted to a court order to cut off the Russians’ access to the computer network in the United States that hackers used to send the stolen information around the world and back to Russia, US officials said. The FBI operation and public warnings from the US about the hacking tool would make it “difficult or untenable” for the FSB to use it effectively again, a senior FBI official said in a call with reporters on Tuesday.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Experts consider that the group of hackers known as Turla, is one of the elite cyber-espionage units of the Russian intelligence services. Turla’s tools are associated with a major security breach in US military networks in the mid-to-late 1990s and a hack of US Central Command in 2008.
In recent years, it has been observed hackers hack into the networks of Eastern European foreign ministries and parliaments to gather intelligence on Russian adversaries.
This news is breaking news and will be updated.
