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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMalware Expert Who Could Blow the Whistle on Russian Hacking
While Trump has everyone distracted with reliving the Civil War and WWII, this was happening:
In Ukraine, a Malware Expert Who Could Blow the Whistle on Russian Hacking
By ANDREW E. KRAMER and ANDREW HIGGINSAUG. 16, 2017
KIEV, Ukraine The hacker, known only by his online alias Profexer, kept a low profile. He wrote computer code alone in an apartment and quietly sold his handiwork on the anonymous portion of the internet known as the dark web. Last winter, he suddenly went dark entirely.
Profexers posts, already accessible only to a small band of fellow hackers and cybercriminals looking for software tips, blinked out in January just days after American intelligence agencies publicly identified a program he had written as one tool used in Russian hacking in the United States. American intelligence agencies have determined Russian hackers were behind the electronic break-in of the Democratic National Committee.
But while Profexers online persona vanished, a flesh-and-blood person has emerged: a fearful man who the Ukrainian police said turned himself in early this year, and has now become a witness for the F.B.I.
I dont know what will happen, he wrote in one of his last messages posted on a restricted-access website before going to the police. It wont be pleasant. But Im still alive.
It is the first known instance of a living witness emerging from the arid mass of technical detail that has so far shaped the investigation into the election hacking and the heated debate it has stirred. The Ukrainian police declined to divulge the mans name or other details, other than that he is living in Ukraine and has not been arrested.
There is no evidence that Profexer worked, at least knowingly, for Russias intelligence services, but his malware apparently did.
That a hacking operation that Washington is convinced was orchestrated by Moscow would obtain malware from a source in Ukraine perhaps the Kremlins most bitter enemy sheds considerable light on the Russian security services modus operandi ................
By ANDREW E. KRAMER and ANDREW HIGGINSAUG. 16, 2017
KIEV, Ukraine The hacker, known only by his online alias Profexer, kept a low profile. He wrote computer code alone in an apartment and quietly sold his handiwork on the anonymous portion of the internet known as the dark web. Last winter, he suddenly went dark entirely.
Profexers posts, already accessible only to a small band of fellow hackers and cybercriminals looking for software tips, blinked out in January just days after American intelligence agencies publicly identified a program he had written as one tool used in Russian hacking in the United States. American intelligence agencies have determined Russian hackers were behind the electronic break-in of the Democratic National Committee.
But while Profexers online persona vanished, a flesh-and-blood person has emerged: a fearful man who the Ukrainian police said turned himself in early this year, and has now become a witness for the F.B.I.
I dont know what will happen, he wrote in one of his last messages posted on a restricted-access website before going to the police. It wont be pleasant. But Im still alive.
It is the first known instance of a living witness emerging from the arid mass of technical detail that has so far shaped the investigation into the election hacking and the heated debate it has stirred. The Ukrainian police declined to divulge the mans name or other details, other than that he is living in Ukraine and has not been arrested.
There is no evidence that Profexer worked, at least knowingly, for Russias intelligence services, but his malware apparently did.
That a hacking operation that Washington is convinced was orchestrated by Moscow would obtain malware from a source in Ukraine perhaps the Kremlins most bitter enemy sheds considerable light on the Russian security services modus operandi ................
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Malware Expert Who Could Blow the Whistle on Russian Hacking (Original Post)
L. Coyote
Aug 2017
OP
DK504
(3,847 posts)1. I hope they have him in Witness Protection.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)4. No doubt his security is guarded in some way.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)2. It matters that a Ukrainian hacker is cooperating with Mueller - Hacking DNC is the crime.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)3. Mueller focusing on Trump Junior's intent
Special counsel's team focusing on Trump Jr.'s intent in Russia probe: Report
by Melissa Quinn | Aug 18, 2017
Members of special counsel Robert Mueller's team are looking at President Trump's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to determine the intent behind his attendance at a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer, according to a report.
A source familiar with the investigation into potential ties between Trump campaign officials and Russians told BuzzFeed that federal prosecutors are working to figure out what information Trump Jr. was provided during the meeting. Federal prosecutors are also examining Trump Jr.'s own comments about the June 2016 gathering.
Trump Jr. attended the meeting, along with the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer, after he was promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
Trump Jr. has said he didn't receive any useful information on Clinton and said the meeting lasted only for a short time. Instead, the conversation shifted to the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law that punished Russian human rights abusers, and the issue of American adoptions of Russian children.
It is a violation of federal election law for a presidential campaign to request or accept anything of value from a foreign national. ....................
by Melissa Quinn | Aug 18, 2017
Members of special counsel Robert Mueller's team are looking at President Trump's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to determine the intent behind his attendance at a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer, according to a report.
A source familiar with the investigation into potential ties between Trump campaign officials and Russians told BuzzFeed that federal prosecutors are working to figure out what information Trump Jr. was provided during the meeting. Federal prosecutors are also examining Trump Jr.'s own comments about the June 2016 gathering.
Trump Jr. attended the meeting, along with the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer, after he was promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
Trump Jr. has said he didn't receive any useful information on Clinton and said the meeting lasted only for a short time. Instead, the conversation shifted to the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law that punished Russian human rights abusers, and the issue of American adoptions of Russian children.
It is a violation of federal election law for a presidential campaign to request or accept anything of value from a foreign national. ....................