Websites Were Defaced And Emails Hacked

There is evidence that journalists investigating the shoot-down of MH17 in Ukraine have been targeted by Russian hackers.

The Washington Post reports that several journalists have been the target of such cyber attacks beginning in February of 2015. The first to be attacked was a British Citizen Journalist who was posting evidence online alleging the Russian government was involved in the shoot-down of the Malaysian Airline B777 over Ukraine.

A year later, CyberBerkut defaced the homepage of Bellingcat.com, the citizen journalism site operated by Elion Higgins. CyberBerkut is thought to be a propaganda arm of the Russian government. CyberBerkut also hacked email, iCloud and social media accounts belonging to a Bellingcat researcher in Moscow. It posted personal information and photos of the researcher online, as well as a scan of his passport.

The attacks have also included "spearphishing" emails with links containing malware. Higgins reportedly received 16 such emails disguised as false Gmail security notices.

That technique, experts say, is consistent with the operation of the Russian hacker group called "Fancy Bear".

The details of the cyberattacks against Bellingcat are detailed in a report posted online by the Virginia security firm ThreatConnect.

(Images from file)

FMI: Full report