NCSC Alert: British Journalists & Politicians Are Hacking Targets

Uploaded on 2023-01-26 in TECHNOLOGY--Hackers, INTELLIGENCE-Hot Spots-Russia, INTELLIGENCE-Hot Spots-Iran, GOVERNMENT-National, FREE TO VIEW

Russian and Iranian government-linked hackers are focusing on British politicians, journalists and researchers with the aim to get access to their email accounts.

Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has now published an alert about two groups from Russia and Iran, warning those in government, defence, thinktanks and the media against clicking on malicious links from people posing as conference hosts, journalists or even colleagues. Researchers say that the hackers target their victims, impersonating people known to them using fake email addresses and social media profiles.

NCSC Director of Operations, Paul Chichester, said “The UK is committed to exposing malicious cyber activity alongside our industry partners and this advisory raises awareness of the persistent threat posed by spear-phishing attacks... These campaigns by threat actors based in Russia and Iran continue to ruthlessly pursue their targets in an attempt to steal online credentials and compromise potentially sensitive systems.

“We strongly encourage organisations and individuals to remain vigilant to potential approaches and follow the mitigation advice in the advisory to protect themselves online.”

The Russian group is thought to be Cold River, which is also known as Callisto and Seaborgium, which hacked nuclear research operations in the US and they leaked emails from ex-MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove. Similar methods have also been used by the Iranian based group ‘Charming Kitten’ to collect information. Independent cyber-security experts have linked the group to the nation’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and it is alleged that it has targeted US politicians as well as critical infrastructure.

Both groups have recently increased their hacking in the UK as the war in Ukraine continues and they are also actively hacking the US and other NATO members with the aim is to steal secrets and to leak correspondence online to embarrass high-profile figures.

The hackers typically seek to gain confidence of a target by impersonating somebody likely to make contact with them, such as by falsely impersonating a journalist, and ultimately luring them to click on a malicious link, sometimes over the course of several emails and other online interactions.

Although the method is one of the oldest hacking techniques, but the NCSC say that what distinguishes the two groups is the effort made to fool their targets, including creating “fake social media or networking profiles that impersonate respected experts” and offering invitations to nonexistent conferences relevant to their targets.

Immanuel Chavoya, Senior Manager of Product Security at SonicWall commented "..The latest data shows how bad actors are getting smarter in the development of evolutionary strains and more targeted in their assaults.”

The NCSC encourages people to use strong email passwords and one recommended technique is to use three random words, and not replicate it as a login credential on other websites. It also recommends people use two-factor authentication, using a mobile phone as part of the log on process, ideally by using a special authenticator app.

Organisations and their employees should be particularly careful when receiving plausible sounding messages from strangers who rely on Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook or other webmail accounts, sometimes impersonating “known contacts” of the target culled from social media.

The NCSC recommends that if individuals or organisations in the identified sectors recognise the specific and targeted activity described in the advisory, they should report it to them.

NCSC: Guardian: BBC: WION: FirstPost: The Times: AA:

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