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Who was it that said, “Know thy enemy”? Sun Tzu among others.
Well Fancy Bear is one of our Enemies, and they are still at it. It is long past time to finally get up to speed ...
fastcompany.com — Jan 12, 2108
[...]
The cyberattack is reportedly being led by the same hackers who leaked the Democratic Party’s emails during the 2016 presidential election. According to cybersecurity firm Trend Micro Inc., the group, which is usually called Fancy Bear, is now working to access the emails of Senate staffers. The attack is similar to the cyber assault on Emmanuel Macron’s campaign leading up to the French presidential election resulting in the release of staffers’ private emails.
The next recently breaking news should have made a bigger splash than it did. That seems to happen a lot in the Age of Trump. Besides being interesting Intel-history — it absolutely destroys one of the Trump Team’s favorite Talking Points … (ie. “the Dossier is Garbage” … ahem, who needs the Dossier, when you have the Dutch Security Service watching your back?)
Report: Dutch spies caught Russian hackers on tape
by Raphael Satter and Mike Corder, Associated Press, Amsterdam; ABCNews.com — Jan 26, 2018
The Netherlands' spy service broke into the computers used by a powerful Russian hacking group and may be sitting on evidence relating to the breach of the U.S. Democratic National Committee, a Dutch newspaper and television show jointly reported Friday.
[...] Volkskrant said American spies were so grateful they sent the Dutch cake and flowers.
Cozy Bear would later be identified as one of two Russian government-linked hacking groups that broke in to the DNC ahead of the 2016 presidential election; the other is usually called Fancy Bear. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says the two groups operated independently.
Unmasking the Cozy Bear hackers would provide key evidence for investigators trying to unravel the DNC breach, but it may not dispel the mystery surrounding the leaks that followed.
[...]
So much for all the smear efforts to solely blame Christopher Steele for “starting” the current Russia Investigation — the Dutch Intelligence services had him beat by an historical mile.
Unfortunately, because of the intentional blindness of our Ostrich-like administration, and their Ostrich-circling enablers, we still have the Russian Cy-Ops plowing ahead like gang-busters.
And look who Fancy Bear “has in their sights” this time around — Uh oh.
by Jeff Nesbit, Contributor, USNews.com — Jan. 18, 2018,
[...]
The Russian intelligence hacking group, Fancy Bear, set up a series of fake websites that were designed to mirror the Senate's internal email system – a sophisticated email "phishing" scheme designed to fool Senate staff into granting it access to Senate emails. A similar effort had been deployed last year in an attempt to hack into French President Emmanuel Macron's campaign.
[...]
While the White House continues to downplay or mute not just the investigation, but the very need for it, every major U.S. military, intelligence and political institution in America now sees this intent by the Russian intelligence community quite clearly.
While Fancy Bear and the second hacking group, Cozy Bear, may have once been independent of Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate, GRU (the intelligence arm of Russia's military forces), a report released just weeks before Donald Trump's presidential inauguration made it clear that they were now operating seamlessly under the guidance of Russian state officials – and should largely be considered an arm of Russian intelligence as they attack American institutions.
[...]
That US News and World Report posting goes on to cite the U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment of the of real threats posed by the these Kremlin-directed, and on-going operations against the U.S.
"Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations," the report read. "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump."
Such are the “on-going threats” that are largely ignored by the current cult of an Administration, and his congressional errand-boys, for fear of bursting the President-elect’s over-inflated ego. Especially concerning his ‘personal humiliating’ Popular Vote Loss. Extremely sore spot there.
See nothing, know nothing, say nothing …
To Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin is a mentor-hero — NOT a conniving, dangerous adversary.
Indeed the current Administration thinks the Presidential Daily Briefing is some sort of status symbol, something to be handed out like “participation trophies” at a Soccer match.
Trump does not see the PDB as the deadly serious summary of US intelligence — designed to protect America through pro-active actions — but instead it is his daily boring chore, competing with his “Executive Time”. Down-time spent mostly watching Fox and Friends, and retweeting their pedantic chatter.
This is a recipe for Disaster, especially seeing as to how the Putin-influence and spying campaigns have been allowed to continue, as if nothing irregular or untoward EVER HAPPENED … as the current beneficiary of the last Putin-project would have us ‘marks’, simply believe. “Just Trust him.”
Good Luck Senators — you’re gonna need it, as big of “Phish” that you are.
The Constitution-torching matches you are playing with, are far more dangerous, than your reflexive Trump posturing would have you believe. Maybe you ought to start protecting some ‘asses’, instead of blindly kissing one — one of the biggest lying-ass around.
He’s just the patsy ... but GOP Senators, you’re Putin’s conspirators stooges unwitting foot-soldiers.
It is long past time GOP … to‘Wake the fuck up.’