John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General, NSD: Good morning.
Thank you all for joining us today as we announce an indictment charging seven Russian military
officers with violations of several U.S. criminal laws for malicious cyber activities against
the United States and its allies.
I'm joined today by the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Scott
Brady, the FBI's Deputy Assistant Director for Cyber, Eric Welling, and the Director
General for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Mark Flynn.
A short while ago, the Dutch minister of defense and the United Kingdom's National Security
advisor held a joint press conference announcing her recent intelligence operation against
several Russian agents conducting a clandestine mission.
The joint U.K.-Dutch intelligence operations led to four Russian GRU officers being caught
red-handed while the attempted to breach the cyber security of the organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
This GRU target and an additional laboratory in Switzerland, that was their next target,
were analyzing the deadly Russian nerve agent recovered in the U.K. following an assassination
attempt, as well as other chemical agents that were used in Syria against civilians.
The Prime Ministers of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement
condemning the Russian behavior.
We are including a copy of their statements and the materials provided to all of you in
this room and online at justice.gov.
Our indictment today charges some of the same Russian operatives caught in The Hague along
with their colleagues in Moscow as part of a conspiracy to pack the right of individuals
and organizations in the United States, Canada, and Europe to obtain information or access
that was then exploited for the benefit of the Russian government.
More specifically, this indictment alleges a conspiracy to use computer hacking to obtain
non-public, personal health information about athletes and others in the files of anti-doping
agencies and sporting federations in multiple countries, and to release that stolen information
selectively and sometimes misleadingly.
All of this was done to undermine those organizations efforts to ensure the integrity of the Olympic
and other games.
Other targets of this conspiracy were the chemical weapons laboratory in the Hague and
the nuclear power company in America.
Three of the seven defendants charged in this case were previously charged in the indictment
brought by the Office of Special Counsel in July of this year, which pertained to a conspiracy
to interfere with the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.
The current indictment does not rise ahead of the work of the Special Counsel, nonetheless,
these two indictments overlap conspirators and have the same methods of computer intrusion
and the same overarching Russian strategic goal: to pursue its interest of disinformation
operations aimed at the muddying or altering perceptions of the truth.
The crux of this indictment, which U.S. Attorney Scott Brady will describe in more detail is
the GRU's targeting of the world's anti-doping agency, the U.S. anti-doping agency, and the
Canadian center for ethics in sport, which is Canad's anti-doping body.
The GRU did so in response to the efforts of anti-doping officials' exposure of Russian
systematic and state backed athlete doping programs.
Embarrassed by the truth, Russia fought back by retaliating against the truth tellers and
against the truth itself.
The results of Russia's hacks were not just felt by the anti-doping officials and agencies.
Instead, Russia decided it was fair game to flood the social and traditional media with
the private, medical information of more than 250 athletes from 30 countries in a manner
that often inaccurately reflected or otherwise omitted the true nature of context of the
information.
I hope that through today's charges which fall far from the electoral arena of our prior
charges, we can further educate ourselves as to the scope of the Russian government's
this disinformation and influence campaigns.
I also hope that responsible members of the international news media will cast a suspecting
eye on future hack and leak operations, which seek in part to manipulate stories in furtherance
of Russian interests.
It is evident from the allegations in today's indictment that the defendants believed they
could use it anonymity to act with impunity in their own countries and on the territories
of sovereign nations to undermine international institutions and to distract from their government's
own wrongdoing.
They were wrong.
Working together with our partners and nations that share our values, we can expose the truth
for the world to see.
Nations like Russia and others that engage in malicious and norm shattering cyber and
influence activities should understand the continuing and steadfast resolve of the United
States and its allies to prevent, disrupt, and deter such unacceptable conduct.
The defendants in this case should know that justice is patient and its reach is long and
its memory is longer.
Before I turn it over to the U.S. attorney to discuss the charges in greater detail,
I would like to extend my gratitude to the prosecutors in his office., here in the national
security division and the team of FBI agents, the Royal Canadian mounted police, and our
international partners in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom who are
together responsible for where we are today.
Thank you.
Scott Brady, United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania: Thank you,
John.
Good morning.
I am Scott Brady, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Today, through our indictment of seven officers of the Russian intelligence directorate, we
are fighting back to protect U.S. citizens and organizations from criminal cyber-attacks
funded by the Russian government.
These seven defendants are charged with the pervasive campaign of hacking, stealing private
and sensitive information, and publicizing that information to retaliate it against Russia's
detractors and sway public opinion in Russia's favor.
Along with our international partners, we're shining a light on these criminals and are
one step closing to bringing justice to the victims of these malicious attacks.
There were hundreds of victims targeted by these Russian criminals.
The defendants targeted athletes and anti-doping agencies, as retaliation for the outing of
Russia's state sponsored athlete doping programs.
As John said, the victims included approximately 250 athletes from 30 countries, as well as
U.S. and international anti-doping agencies such as WADA, USADA, CCES, the Court of arbitration
for sport, the international Association of Athletics Federation, FIFA, and as many as
35 anti-doping or sporting 40 federations.
But these bad actors carried out retaliatory attacks to further other Russian interests
as well.
They targeted Westinghouse, a nuclear power company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
that supplied nuclear fuel to the Ukraine.
They targeted the organization for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons, which was investigating
the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the poisoning of a former GRU officer and his
daughter in the U.K.
And they targeted a lab in Switzerland analyzed the nerve agent used in that the poisoning.
Let me talk to you briefly about the charges in the indictment for a moment.
the defendants are charged with engaging in a wide-ranging conspiracy to hack into private
networks around the world.
The victims of this illegal activity are anti- doping organizations and the U.S. and abroad,
Swiss and Dutch entities which investigate the use of chemical weapons, and as I mentioned,
an important company in my own district, Westinghouse.
Federal law makes it illegal to use hacking techniques such as spearfishing to gain access
to protected computers and networks.
These illegal actions provided the basis for the wire fraud conspiracy count.
Five of the defendants were charged with aggravated identity theft: that means a legally obtained
identifying information, including passwords used by real persons and exploited it to further
their hacking activities.
Defendant Yermakov is charged with four counts of wire fraud and is alleged to have sent
spearfishing emails to specific employees of Westinghouse to trick them in providing
their login credentials, which would enable him to gain access to their personal email
accounts and ultimately Westinghouse's network.
Finally, all defendants are charged with illegal money-laundering which means they used crypto
currency, such as Bitcoin, to purchase the infrastructure to further conspiracies, such
as servers to register domains, to pay vendors and to buy other hacking tools and the financial
transactions occurred at least in part, in the United States.
I want to talk about two things generally.
The how of this conspiracy is fascinating?
Our ability to identify operational practices was critical in our ability to identify the
defendants and to bring the charges today and the indictment lays the practice is out
in detail, the MO of the cyber units, the use of spearfishing campaigns, the use of
the D-dos attacks and the deployment of malware in networks.
The creation of spoof domains, the use of crypto currency to mask sources, the creation
of a false hactivist profile, fancy bear, to publish stolen data, and the role of close
access teams to hack hotel Wi-Fi and still officials' network access information, but
It is important that the why not get lost in this.
This began with a disclosure of Russian state-sponsored doping programs for its athletes.
In other words, Russia cheated.
They cheated, they got caught, they were banned from the Olympics, they were mad, and they
retaliated and in retaliating, they broke the law, so they are criminals.
I want to say a word about victims in this case as well.
In the midst of discussions of international standards and national strategic interests
it is important to remember that these defendants engaged in criminal activity in violation
of the laws of the United State which harmed United States citizens.
This is not spy versus spy, these were not passive intelligence operations.
This is a criminal conspiracy, which cost real harm to real victims.
When the GRU target American corporations to steal trade secrets and technology, it
costs American companies billions of dollars in lost RND and capital investment and there
is a real cost to American workers, many of who they lose their jobs as company's production
and sales suffer.
When the GRU publishes U.S. athletes' most private and sensitive medical information
to embarrass our national sports federations, we are all made more vulnerable.
No American citizen, let alone are most accomplished athletes that represent the United States
in world competition should have to endure this, and when the GRU hacks anti proliferation
organizations and labs which test for the use of chemical weapons for their own parochial
interests or advantage, we are all made less safe.
We at the Department of Justice are not satisfied with merely exposing the conduct that is the
subject of this investigation.
Our goal in this case is the same as in every case that we charge.
We seek to arrest those who have broken the law.
In this case, we want to bring them to Pittsburgh and we want them to stand trial, and we want
to put them in jail.
these defendants must be held accountable for their crimes.
That is our goal and that is what our victims deserve, and what is but justice requires.
We will now here from Eric Welling, FBI's deputy assistant director for cyber.
Eric Welling, Deputy Assistant Director for Cyber: Good morning, everyone.
Again, 'm Eric Welling, the deputy assistant for cyber.
I would like to make a few comments to echo the sentiments of my colleagues.
The FBI is charged with defending the U.S. against a full range of cybercrimes.
We face cyber threats from hackers for hire and elicit cyber Enterprises and we also face
threats from nation states as we have seen in the indictment announced today.
The seven that are indicted all officers in the Russian GRU.
The FBI investigation revealed, from late 2014 thru May 2018, the GRU conducted computer
hacking activities to retaliate against World anti-doping officials who publicly exposed
Russian government sponsorship of doping of Russian athletes.
Their campaign was taken to damage internationally and intentionally damage world organizations
and athletes committed to fairness.
They infiltrated networks and computers of international and domestic anti-doping agencies,
officials, sporting federations, and hundreds of clean international athletes from 30 countries.
Their targets extended beyond anti-doping sporting associations.
Notably they also targeted The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
In situations where the GRU officers cannot remotely hack into their targeted systems,
they traveled, using Russian government issued passports to locations around the world to
conduct those close access hacking operations.
You will see photos here.
I think we have some others that will provide after the conference where you will see the
rental car used by the operatives outside of the organization for Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons.
You will see the materials and gear that was abandoned after the failed intelligence operation
and you can also then see how the gear was arranged to penetrate the Wi-Fi systems.
This equipment was also used in compromises previously.
The involved targeting of the Wi-Fi networks was used by victim organizations in personal
and various locations including Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Brazil.
The GRU used unauthorized access and stolen information to obtain for the strategic benefit
of the Russian Federation and engaged in a campaign of disinformation to advance the
interests of the Russian government.
Specifically, they worked to undermine and destabilize the efforts of the international
doping officials, publicized sensitive medical information and drug testing results belonging
to athletes, and damaged the reputations of clean athletes around the world by peddling
a false narrative suggesting such athletes were using banned or performance-enhancing
drugs.
The GRU offices publicly release stolen and private information online, hiding behind
the name of fancy bear hacking team These activities by Russian GRU officers moved well
beyond acceptable government intelligence operations.
They are breaking traditional international norms and the law by using cyber tools and
resources in the fashion they have.
The FBI considers any criminal activity conducted by nation state actors, especially those living
to the violations of Americans' privacy or interference in our economy to be a matter
of national security.
These GRU officers broke U.S. law by hacking into U.S. infrastructure and victimizing U.S.
citizens.
Victims targeted by nation-state hacker should not have to face the threat alone.
This indictment is an important step in seeking justice for the victims in this criminal activity.
We fully identified these conspirators and can show who they are, and can provide evidence
of their affiliation with the Russian government.
The charges reinforce this behavior is not acceptable and violates international norms
as well as U.S. criminal laws.
These charges further layout for the international community some of the basis for the U.S. government's
prior assertions that the Russian government was responsible for other cyber intrusion
attacks.
This serves as a reminder the FBI does not tolerate criminal activity, even those conducted
at the behest of nation-states.
We believe that these GRU offices are located in Russia and not immediately available to
answer the charges.
Still, people travel in many countries support international norms and rule of law.
We look forward for this subject to have the opportunity to answer for these charges.
We cannot always apprehend subject easily or quickly but we will keep at it because
he FBI has a long memory and an important responsibility to the victims.
We would not be here without the courage cooperation of the victims and we encourage all victims
to report suspected intrusions to their local offices, so we can erase the cost of this
kind of behavior.
We understand victims may be reluctant to report breaches, but we do strive to minimize
the disruption to their daily activities and we do safeguard their privacy.
We don't want victims to feel we victimized.
Suffering in silence does not serve anyone.
We want to thank our international partners.
Today is a victory of information sharing.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police with their coordination between investigations here and
there, The U.K. national security intelligence agencies for their enduring and untiring support.,
The Netherlands' defense service for their assistance, illuminating the tactics of the
GRU and the Switzerland's Attorney General's office for a proper response -- responding
prompt response.
We will work with the diversity of thought, the diversity of countries, but with the commonality
of purpose to ensure the safety of our people and networks.
Thank you.
Reporter: I know you had said all of the defendants have been apprehended, but do you any reason
to believe they have assets outside of Russia, the United States, and other countries that
could be seized?
John: I am not sure about that now, but that brings up an excellent point which is often,
one of the purposes of these charges is to provide the foundation of other parts of the
government to take actions, and we have seen in the past where we have followed actions
like this with sanctions on the defendants, on organizations, and other people involved
-- defendants, on organizations, and other people involved.
The administration has already sanctioned the many of the folks involved in previous
cyber security and including some of the oligarchs who have supported.
Kerry Johnson, NPR Reporter: I am curious if you have more information about the motivation
of these hackers who targeted Westinghouse.
Was it, as you pointed out in the indictment because they were supplying energy to Ukraine,
or any other information that you have of how Westinghouse played in here, because it
seems to be a part of some of the other sports-related victims in this case?
John: I don't think we are going to go beyond what is in the indictment at this point.
Kerry Johnson, NPR Reporter: Did they actually penetrate Westinghouse's computer system?
John: Again, if it is not in the indictment, we're not going to talk about it here
Pete Williams, NBC : Can I ask you how these investigations got started separately?
tt is obvious the one where they caught them red-handed, but was a U.S. separately investigating
the hacking here, and also if we can just hear from Mr. Flynn about the Canadian role?
Mark Flynn, Director General for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: The reason I'm here
is to demonstrate to everybody that this is an international problem and international
law enforcement are collaborating on this.
My remarks today will be limited because we do have an ongoing criminal investigation
in Canada with respect to the Canadian victims, two of which you learned today in the indictment
being hosted by Canada, and the world anti-doping agency and our anti-doping agency, as well
as the Canadian center for ethics and sport.
Those investigations are parallel investigations, but there are strong collaboration and the
sharing of information amongst the law enforcement community to tackle this problem as a global
community, which is critical in any success we are going to have in dealing with this
problem.
We have to make the world borderless in the law enforcement context, the same it is for
these criminals and their reach to cause harm globally.
Pete Williams, NBC: In terms of how this got started separately, did this investigation
start separately from the investigation oversees?
John: I'm not going to go in the specifics of how this got started, but in general, we
have a great interest in this group of hackers who have been operating.
We have indicted members of this group in the past and investigations get started in
a number of ways, including victims coming forward, following the conduct, or ours seeing
aspects of others in these investigations.
Pierre Thomas, ABC: How interesting is it that it shows how nimble they were in terms
of targeting a lab doing work in regard to the attempted assassination in the Ukraine
regarding the nerve agent?
Secondly, given the level of activity, any update in terms of whether they are targeting
the upcoming midterm elections?
John: so, I think, I mean, look, their nimbleness and efforts in this regard shows their sophistication
and their resources of a state-backed hacking organization that cannot only do the cyber
intrusions from home, but can also send its officers abroad with diplomatic passports
in order to do this.
This is why it is such a serious threat in this case is a serious example of that and
illustration of all of that.
At this time, I don't have anything further on the current status of the elections.
Reporter: yeah, quick question about the Dutch intelligence service.
It says they disrupted the operation for GRU officers and in the Hague.
They do not actually get their hands on it, they disrupted operations and the four guys
got away.
Is that correct?
John: I don't know if I should get into the details of that.
That is best answered by the Dutch.
Great credit to the Dutch for preventing a crime like this from happening.
The best law enforcement preventing a crime ahead of time, and they did that.
They disrupted this very early on in what they were doing, and the people involved abandoned
their equipment there, but beyond that, I think that is for the Dutch to comment on
the operations.
John: We believe all the defendants are currently in Russia, yes.
Reporter: Your statement said, all led to four being caught red-handed.
So they weren't actually arrested?
What do you mean caught red-handed?
John: that is really for the Dutch to comment on.
That's their intelligence operation.
That is not our law enforcement action.
Reporter: Mr. Brady, you say you want to bring these people to justice.
When people are out there denying that group site fancy bare are connected to the Russian
government, does that impact your ability to bring people like that to justice?
John: I think the indictment lays out the involvement of fancy bare in terms of the
involvement of the Russian government.
These are Russian military officers.
I think if we could get our hands on these folks one day, we would have no problem bringing
them to justice.
Reporter: Do people question what you're saying about the connection to Russia… is it true?
When people claim that, does that affect your ability to do that?
John: Like I said, if we get our hands on them, we won't have any problems.
[INDISCERNIBLE]
Reporter: Did you coordinate in bringing information to this indictment?
John: this investigation is entirely separate from the work of the Special Counsel's office.
Reporter: Before you released this indictment, was there any information between this investigation
and the Special Counsel's office?
John: I will not comment on internal Justice Department discussions.
Reporter: The Western District of Pennsylvania often seems to be involved in these cases
charging hacking the foreign government for this.
Is there anything you have seen that actually works?
As you know, name and shame, not everybody thinks -- is there anything that works to
deter foreign hackers?
Scott: To answer the first part of your question, the reason they come to Pittsburgh is because
we have the best prosecutors and agents in the Department of Justice.
I would take issue with the premise of your question that name and shame does not work.
There is deterrent value, even if we cannot put our hands on the defendants at this time.
Number one, they are limited from traveling because if they travel to countries which
we have extradition, they will be sent to the U.S., and they will be held accountable.
But we have seen in our cases, which you reference, Wang Dong case, the prosecution of five members
of the PLA and 2014 -- in 2014, We have seen a change in at least for China in those cases,
their corporate espionage practices.
and they were a part of bilateral discussions between the president and the State Department,
so we believe they are effective.
Even if one takes issue with that, it is important that the victims of these crimes understand
that we are behind them and we are going to hold peaceful -- we're going to hold people
accountable publicly for those crimes.
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