The United States and Europe condemn Russia for recent cyber attacks

Last Friday, the United States denounced Russia for “malicious electronic attacks” against European countries such as Germany, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden. According to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, the country “strongly condemns the malicious cyber activity of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff (GRU), also known as APT28” toward these countries.

“We join Germany in attributing specific malicious activity carried out by APT28 targeting a German political party. We call on Russia to end this malicious activity and fulfill its international commitments and commitments,” Miller added. “Together with the European Union and our NATO allies, we will continue to take the necessary measures to disrupt Russian cyber activities, protect Our citizens and foreign partners, and holding malicious actors accountable.”

For the United States, APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, has been responsible for attacks on a variety of targets ranging from defense and space companies to infrastructure operators and political parties.

As the Czech Republic expressed on the same Friday, “some Czech institutions were subjected to cyberattacks that exploited a hitherto unknown security vulnerability,” and according to Interior Minister Veit Rakosan, his country’s infrastructure has recently suffered “more than dozens” of attacks of this kind.

In the same vein, Germany blamed “Russian state-sponsored hackers” for the “intolerable” cyber attack on several members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Additionally, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated that the government investigation into who was behind the 2023 cyberattack against the Social Democratic Party had just concluded, and was attributed to the APT28 group, run by Russia’s military intelligence service. He added: “In other words, it was a state-sponsored Russian cyberattack against Germany, which is intolerable and absolutely unacceptable and will have consequences.”

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