Reporters investigating Russian military intelligence have been targeted by highly sophisticated cyberattacks through their encrypted e-mail accounts, with evidence suggesting Moscow was responsible, the e-mail service provider ProtonMail and journalists said on Saturday.
The phishing attack, which sought to dupe users into sharing their ProtonMail passwords, was aimed at journalists from the award-winning Web site Bellingcat, which helped identify the agents who poisoned former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain.
Geneva-based ProtonMail said in a statement that “the evidence [along with independent third-party assessments] seem to suggest an attack of Russian origin.”
ProtonMail chief executive Andy Yen said that the operation “was one of the best-run phishing attacks we have ever seen.”
Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev, who led the site’s work on the Skripal case, said he had no doubt Russia’s GRU military intelligence unit was responsible and that it marked “a quantum leap” in terms of their technical sophistication.
“It was very convincing,” he said, noting that no Bellingcat reporters gave up their passwords.
ProtonMail, which describes itself as the world’s most secure e-mail provider, has become increasingly popular among journalists and others who handle sensitive information because user communications are protected by end-to-end encryption.
The Harvard-educated Yen, who worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research for five years before founding ProtonMail, said that the company could not read users’ e-mails even if it wanted to — in clear contrast with Google’s Gmail.
The phishing attacks against Bellingcat reporters occurred last week, with “e-mails sent to the targeted users claiming to be from the ProtonMail team, asking the targets to enter their ... login credentials,” the company said.
Grozev said that despite his technical savvy and awareness that he was a target, he “would have been fooled” if not for prior warning from a contact who had received a similar phishing email earlier this month.
While the assault on Bellingcat journalists was concentrated over the past few days, Grozen claimed that multiple investigators and researchers from other organizations that work on Russia have received phishing e-mails in their ProtonMail accounts since April.
Yen said that “putting a precise start date as to when other Russia journalists began to be targeted is a bit more complex and not something that we can confirm with full confidence right now.”
Yen said that ProtonMail has alerted the Swiss Federal Police and the government’s computer system security office, MELANI, about the events this week.
The company has not yet received any indication that an investigation will be launched, Yen said, noting that he was not optimistic the perpetrators would face justice, in part because Moscow was likely to protect them.
However, ProtonMail is conducting its own investigation.
Grozen said Switzerland had a duty to act, given that its .ch domain was used to carry out the phishing operation.
“It is essentially a crime within the digital territory of Switzerland,” he said, stressing that the entities who registered the malicious .ch web Wites are “traceable for [Swiss] authorities”.
Swiss Federal Police and MELANI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bellingcat, a highly regarded Britain-based investigative Web site, has used open-source technology to break a series of stories, notably concerning Russia, including major revelations in the downing of MH17 flight over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, which has also been linked to the GRU.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is leaning into his banking background as his country fights a trade war with the US, but his financial ties have also made him a target for conspiracy theories. Incorporating tropes familiar to followers of the far-right QAnon movement, conspiratorial social media posts about the Liberal leader have surged ahead of the country’s April 28 election. Posts range from false claims he recited a “satanic chant” at a campaign event to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images of him in a pool with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “He’s the ideal person to be targeted here, for sure, due to
DISPUTE: Beijing seeks global support against Trump’s tariffs, but many governments remain hesitant to align, including India, ASEAN countries and Australia China is reaching out to other nations as the US layers on more tariffs, in what appears to be an attempt by Beijing to form a united front to compel Washington to retreat. Days into the effort, it is meeting only partial success from countries unwilling to ally with the main target of US President Donald Trump’s trade war. Facing the cratering of global markets, Trump on Wednesday backed off his tariffs on most nations for 90 days, saying countries were lining up to negotiate more favorable conditions. China has refused to seek talks, saying the US was insincere and that it
RSS