There's Now At Least One Real, Live Witness In FBI's Election-Hacking Probe
Source: Talking Points Memo
By SAM THIELMAN Published AUGUST 16, 2017 2:41 PM
A New York Times report out this morning contains a rare glimpse into the workings of a notorious hacking team thats been chased by an increasingly panicked collection of researchers, journalists and government investigators in recent months: Fancy Bear, the collective associated with Russian military intelligence and that U.S. intelligence officials say breached the Democratic National Committees servers during the 2016 campaign.
According to the Times, there now appears to be a material witness cooperating with the FBI investigation into election-related hackingeven though it appears that individual learned of his role in Fancy Bears operations after the fact.
The first part of the report is a profile of Profexor, the psuedonym for a Ukrainian coder who developed a malware program, called the P.A.S. web shell, that could be used to administer a hacked server, according to cybersecurity expert Mark Maunder. Profexor, whose real identity remains unknown, became so frightened in December after the Department of Homeland Security identified his software as one of the tools used in the DNC hack that he posted to a closed hacker forum that he was still alive and eventually turned himself in to Ukrainian police, who then put him in touch with the FBI, according to the Times. Profexor took P.A.S. off the market and has not been arrested. He appeared to have had no idea his software had been used in the DNC hack, and told Ukrainian authorities he hadnt made P.A.S. to be used the way it had been, according to the Times.
The reporters on the Times piece, Andrew E. Kramer and Andrew Higgins, drily observe that a terrified hacker throwing himself on the mercy of the Ukrainian cops suggests the popular image of a crack team of dedicated Russian military cyberspies working to overthrow America may be overblown. That had been indeed been the consensus until recently: The Fancy Bear-linked GRU was understood to be the organized, professional unit of the Russian security service, while its sister agency, the FSB, was thought to be the more fly-by-night operation that supposedly coerced or blackmailed hackers into doing work for the Kremlin.
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/profexor-fbi-witness-dnc-hack-fancy-bear
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Assange and Greenwald crank up the smear/poutrage machine...
ffr
(22,670 posts)leftynyc
(26,060 posts)These were the poor schlubs who the Russians were hoping to pin the hack on.
FakeNoose
(32,645 posts)...then we should hear him out and see what he has to say.
I would find it hard to believe that a Ukrainian guy would be willing to "help out" Uncle Pootie.
Most Ukrainians hate Putin's guts and if anything they would take sides against him. So maybe this guy will tell our Feds what he knows and help us with this mess.