Well waddaya know? I’m tempted to do a straight news story here but, honestly, everyone including a can of Chef Boyardee canned ravioli on the shelf at Safeway knows what’s going on here.
Unless it’s just a coincidence that, as the New York Times now reports, Russians have hacked the Ukrainian Gas Company at the center of impeachment.
You know, the one that Hunter Biden had been involved in.
Ahh, must be a coincidence (the glass jar of Bubbies sauerkraut on my kitchen counter just shouted: “No.”)
With President Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, Russian military hackers have been boring into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the affair, according to security experts.
The hacking attempts against Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served, began in early November, as talk of the Bidens, Ukraine and impeachment was dominating the news in the United States.
It is not yet clear what the hackers found, or precisely what they were searching for. But the experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens — the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment.
Nah. It still must be a coincidence (my opened can of Prime Plus wet codfish/shrimp for cats just meowed and shouted “NO!)
The Russian tactics are strikingly similar to what American intelligence agencies say was Russia’s hacking of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. In that case, once they had the emails, the Russians used trolls to spread and spin the material, and built an echo chamber to widen its effect.
Malarky (I have to pay Joe Biden a copyright fee to use that word). It MUST be a coincidence (my can of Hormel canned enchiladas just yelled: “No es posible!!”)
Then, as now, the Russian hackers from a military intelligence unit known formerly as the G.R.U., and to private researchers by the alias “Fancy Bear,” used so-called phishing emails that appear designed to steal usernames and passwords, according to Area 1, the Silicon Valley security firm that detected the hacking. In this instance, the hackers set up fake websites that mimicked sign-in pages of Burisma subsidiaries, and have been blasting Burisma employees with emails meant to look like they are coming from inside the company…
….“The timing of the Russian campaign mirrors the G.R.U. hacks we saw in 2016 against the D.N.C. and John Podesta,” the Clinton campaign chairman, Mr. Falkowitz said. “Once again, they are stealing email credentials, in what we can only assume is a repeat of Russian interference in the last election.”
The Russian attacks on Burisma appear to be running parallel to an effort by Russian spies in Ukraine to dig up information in the analog world that could embarrass the Bidens, according to an American security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. The spies, the official said, are trying to penetrate Burisma and working sources in the Ukrainian government in search of emails, financial records and legal documents.
I mean, it can’t be that the Russians are doing this in plain sight, don’t you think?
I’m sure the White House, Donald Trump, and the GOP will move to put a stop to it.
If the Russians want to bore, why don’t they just screen Cats?
As I have been saying, Russian interference on behalf of Trump is already happening.
“With Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Biden and his son, Russian military hackers have been boring into…” https://t.co/i29Kx31oNm
— Amy Siskind ???? (@Amy_Siskind) January 14, 2020
Here Comes Wikigate 2: NYT Claims Russian Hackers Successfully "Breached" Burisma https://t.co/2s132wHUHF
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 14, 2020
"Russia, if you're listening, hack Burisma." GRU has done same thing to this Ukrainian firm that they did to DNC. If Trump asked Zelensky on a public call to investigate the Bidens, what do you suppose he asked Putin on a private call? Vlad, do me a favor. https://t.co/AU4bUpYXGe
— Richard Stengel (@stengel) January 14, 2020
For more blog and website reaction to this story GO HERE.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.