Bullet points of US charges five Russian military hackers with targeting Ukraine’s government with destructive malware

Bullet points of US charges five Russian military hackers with targeting Ukraine’s government with destructive malware
- The US Department of Justice accused five members of Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of hacking several Ukrainian government agencies, an unnamed US government agency in Maryland, and computers belonging to 26 NATO countries.
- The indictment names Russian GRU colonel Yuriy Denisov and four lieutenants as the masterminds behind the WhisperGate cyberattack, which was designed to appear like a ransomware attack but was actually a destructive attack.
- The Russian government was accused of launching WhisperGate in support of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
- The US government gained significant access to the hackers' infrastructure, allowing them to track their activities and plan meetings in Moscow.
- The FBI, the Department of Justice, and other international agencies released a joint cybersecurity advisory with technical details of Unit 29155's operations and offered a reward of $10 million for each alleged hacker.
- The US government also published a poster with the hackers' pictures soliciting tips that could lead to their arrest and referred to the hackers as having 'baby faces'.