Release the Dutch Evidence of the DNC Hack - Bloomberg

Release the Dutch Evidence of the DNC Hack - Bloomberg



...The Dutch hackers, reportedly, didn't just watch everything Cozy Bear -- a fluid group in which about 10 people were active at any given time -- was doing on its computers. They also took over the security camera that recorded all the comings and goings at the group's space. Dutch intelligence matched the faces of visitors against a database of known Russian agents and linked the group to the SVR. Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity firm retained by the DNC, hinted in its analysis of the breach that Cozy Bear could have been run by either SVR or the FSB, Russia's domestic intelligence service, so the Dutch report clarifies the attribution.



...the questions raised by the Dutch scoop are as significant as the gaps it helps to close. If the Dutch witnessed the DNC intrusion in 2015 and reported it to U.S. colleagues, it's difficult to understand why the Russian hackers were left to forage in the DNC network for months without being ejected. After all, Cozy Bear's attacks on the State Department and the White House were actively fought as soon as they became apparent.



...It also appears that the Dutch hackers didn't detect a second Russian intrusion into the DNC, by APT 28, or Fancy Bear, a group Crowdstrike links to GRU military intelligence: They didn't have access to this group's network.



...Specific evidence linking Russian intelligence to the DNC hack would dramatically change the current picture of limited attempts at interference via Facebook and the state-owned network Russia Today, especially if it could also be shown that material obtained in that Russian hack surfaced on Wikileaks. It serves no purpose to keep that kind of information from the public.