U.S. suspects Russia behind cyberattack on Ukrainian power utility:
U.S. security agencies are investigating whether Russian government hackers were behind a cyberattack on the Ukrainian power grid last month.
Computer security experts at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Homeland Security Department are examining the malicious software found on the networks of a power company in western Ukraine, which said on December 23 that a large area of the country had been left without electricity due to “interference” in its systems, the Daily Beast and Washington Examiner reported.
The attack in Ukraine could be a bad sign for the U.S. power grid, because malicious software known as BlackEnergy that was found on the networks of the Ukrainian power company, Prykarpattyaoblenergo, was also used in a campaign targeting power facilities in the United States in 2014.
The 2014 attack caused no damage but it set off alarms among U.S. security and intelligence agencies.
U.S. utility watchdogs, including the North American Electric Reliability Council, have warned U.S. power companies to be on the alert and review their network defenses in light of the successful Ukraine attack.
Ukrainian officials have publicly blamed Russia for the attack, but Russia's involvement hasn't been confirmed separately. A Moscow-backed group, Sandworm, has been suspected of using BlackEnergy for targeted attacks in the past.
Confirmation that Russia was behind the Ukraine attack would put pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama to publicly assign the blame as he did when he identified North Korea as the culprit in a cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014. Obama later ordered sanctions on North Korea and ordered a cyber-counterattack on its web system. (Reuters, Daily Beast, Quartz, Washington Examiner)
This ends our live blogging for January 6. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
Ukraine’s National Anticorruption Bureau has launched an investigation into the acquisition of expensive real estate by the head military prosecutor for the country's Antiterrorist Operation (ATO) forces, the bureau informed RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
In December, Donetska Pravda journalists claimed the prosecutor, Kostyantyn Kulyk, and his relatives became owners of several expensive apartments in Kyiv.
Kulyk himself refused to comment on the accusations in a phone conversation, asking to wait for an official response from the Prosecutor-General's Office. It is yet to respond to RFE/RL's information request.
From the report:
The SMM monitored the security situation in the area of Kominternove (23km north-east of Mariupol). At the last Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint at the south-western entrance to the village, the checkpoint commander told the SMM that about 15 vehicles were "travelling back and forth per day". The SMM saw one civilian vehicle entering the village. In the vicinity of the checkpoint, the SMM observed approximately 10 anti-tank mines, tied together by wire, placed along a side-track of the road. The SMM could not reach the village from the east and south, as armed “DPR” members denied the SMM access to the village.
Kyiv Court of Appeals has declined to mitigate the life sentence of Oleksiy Pukach, the former head of Ukraine’s Department of External Surveillance, who in 2013 was found guilty of murdering Ukrainian journalist Heorhiy Gongadze.
Pukach’s defense insisted that he had no motive or criminal intent to commit murder. They asked for an eight-year prison term instead of a life sentence.
Pukach is one of four people who were found guilty of the murder. He was sentenced on January 29, 2013.
Gongadze was kidnapped and murdered in September 2000. A prominent independent journalist, he was known for his reporting on high-level corruption.