Russian Operations That Meddled in 2016 Just Hacked a Federal Agency and Continue to Spread Misinformation In the Run-Up to the Election

Treasury to punish companies that pay ransom to sanctioned entities, Huawei opens transparency center as the UK says it failed to fix security flaws and much more

Two top news reports yesterday show that the Russian digital propaganda and hacking efforts that undermined U.S. democracy during the 2016 presidential campaigns are still energetically alive and kicking and continue to cause damage. First, Jack Stubbs at Reuters reported that Russia’s disinformation arm, the Internet Research Agency, has posed as an independent news outlet to target right-wing social media users during the current presidential campaign, according to FBI sources. The pseudo media organization set up by the Russian intelligence arm is called the Newsroom for American and European Based Citizens (NAEBC). (Jack Stubbs / Reuters)

Meanwhile, Andy Greenberg at Wired said that the unidentified intruders that DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said hacked into a U.S. federal agency might in fact be APT 23 or Fancy Bear, a team of hackers working for Russia's GRU, according to a researcher at Dragos. Fancy Bear is best known for its hack and leak attac…