Jailed Russian cyber criminal claims that he was the one who hacked the DNC on orders from the Kremlin, and that he can prove it.

Courtesy of McClatchy:

A jailed Russian who says he hacked into the Democratic National Committee computers on the Kremlin’s orders to steal emails released during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign now claims he left behind a data signature to prove his assertion. 

In an interview with Russia’s RAIN television channel made public Wednesday, Konstantin Kozlovsky provided further details about what he said was a hacking operation led by the Russian intelligence agency known by its initials FSB. Among them, Kozlovsky said he worked with the FSB to develop computer viruses that were first tested on large, unsuspecting Russian companies, such as the oil giant Rosneft, later turning them loose on multinational corporations.

In written answers from jail made public Wednesday by RAIN TV, a Moscow-based independent TV station that has repeatedly run afoul of the Kremlin, Kozlovsky said he feared his minders might turn on him and planted a “poison pill” during the DNC hack. He placed a string of numbers that are his Russian passport number and the number of his visa to visit the Caribbean island of St. Martin in a hidden .dat file, which is a generic data file. 

That allegation is difficult to prove, partly because of the limited universe of people who have seen the details of the hack. The DNC initially did not share information with the FBI, instead hiring a tech firm called CrowdStrike, run by a former FBI cyber leader. That company has said it discovered the Russian hand in the hacking, but had no immediate comment on the claim by Kozlovsky that he planted an identifier. 

The newest allegations are potentially significant. If the FSB did in fact direct Kozlovsky, then it debunks Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that his government had nothing to do with hacking that all major U.S. intelligence agencies put at his feet. It also calls into question the view of a hack that was conducted as a closely held, organized FSB campaign directed from central offices. Kozlovsky says he worked largely from home, with limited knowledge of others and that the political hack was just part of larger relationship with the FSB’s top cyber officials on viruses directed at other countries and the private sector. 

“Based on my experience and understanding of professional intelligence operations, the blending of criminal activity with sanctioned intelligence operations is an old page out of the Russian intelligence-services playbook,” said Leo Taddeo, chief information security officer for Cyxtera Technologies and a former head of cyber operations in the FBI’s New York office. “What the defendant (in Russia) is describing would not be inconsistent with past Russian intelligence operations.”

I would guess that certain intelligence agencies here in America could confirm this "data signature," and once that was accomplished this individual might prove to be a valuable asset for investigators.

It has already been well established that the FSB ordered this attack. But finding out how they did it, and who specially oversaw the operation could help to prevent the next one.

Assuming of course that the now Trump led American law enforcement and intelligence services are interested in preventing the next one.

Russian government arresting FSB operatives with possible ties to hacking of American presidential election. Update!

Courtesy of Radio Free Europe: 

Russian media have reported that another Federal Security Service (FSB) officer has been arrested on treason charges in a case that may be linked to cyberattacks targeting the U.S. presidential election campaign. 

The reports by Rambler News Service on January 26 come a day after the Kommersant newspaper reported that a senior officer of the cyberintelligence department of the FSB -- Russia’s lead security agency -- had been arrested. 

Kommersant said Sergei Mikhailov, deputy chief of the FSB's Center for Information Security, had been arrested in December on treason charges. 

Another Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, on January 26 corroborated the Kommersant report. 

Novaya Gazeta quoted unidentified sources as saying Mikhailov was arrested during a meeting with other FSB officers in Moscow, and was taken from the room with a sack over his head. 

Also arrested in December was a manager of the renowned Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab.

I read about the Mikhailov two days ago on the New York Times who suggested that "the detention of an official who would have been in a position to engage in the election hacking in America could indicate a good-will gesture to the United States, which has penalized Russia for the electoral meddling."

Yeah somehow I doubt that, but RFE suggests another, more sinister, possibility:  

The newspaper quoted unidentified sources as saying that Mikhailov is suspected of providing U.S. intelligence with information about King Servers, a hosting service owned by Russian citizen Vladimir Fomenko. 

King Servers was used as a platform by hackers who targeted state-election computer systems in Arizona and Illinois last year. Fomenko, who rents space on his servers, has denied any links to the perpetrators of the cyberattacks. 

Currently American intelligence agencies are attempting to investigate the Russian hacking and its effect on our last election.

So if it is true that Mikhailov was helping those intelligence agencies, and he has now been arrested by the Russian government and charged with treason, what is the likelihood that he will still be accessible to the FBI and CIA?

If anything it appears that the Russian government is doing a clean sweep to remove the possibility that the American intelligence agencies will be able to find any definitive links between the hacks and the Russian officials.

Update: And the plot thickens.

Courtesy of the Telegraph:  

An ex-KGB chief suspected of helping the former MI6 spy Christopher Steele to compile his dossier on Donald Trump may have been murdered by the Kremlin and his death covered up. it has been claimed. 

Oleg Erovinkin, a former general in the KGB and its successor the FSB, was found dead in the back of his car in Moscow on Boxing Day in mysterious circumstances. 

Erovinkin was a key aide to Igor Sechin, a former deputy prime minister and now head of Rosneft, the state-owned oil company, who is repeatedly named in the dossier.

In Russia there are no coincidences. This is what happens when Vladimir Putin wants you silenced.

In my humble opinion this is confirmation that the Russian did indeed hack our election to help get Donald Trump elected, and that they are now desperately working to cover their tracks before our intelligence agencies can put all of the puzzle pieces together.