Tag Archives: U.S. Cyber Command

U.S. disrupted Russian trolls on day of November election: report

FILE PHOTO: Voters fill out their ballots for the midterm election at a polling place in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. November 6, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Oxford

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military disrupted the internet access of a Russian troll farm accused of trying to influence American voters on Nov. 6, 2018, the day of the congressional elections, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The U.S. Cyber Command strike targeted the Internet Research Agency in the Russian port city of St. Petersburg, the Post reported, citing unidentified U.S. officials.

The group is a Kremlin-backed outfit whose employees had posed as Americans and spread disinformation online in an attempt to also influence the 2016 election, according to U.S. officials.

“They basically took the IRA (Internet Research Agency) offline,” the Post quoted one person familiar with the matter as saying. “They shut ’em down.”

The Pentagon’s cyber warfare unit, which works closely with the National Security Agency, had no comment on the report. Cyber Command’s offensive operations are highly classified and rarely made public.

The Internet Research Agency was one of three entities and 13 Russian individuals indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office in February 2018 in an alleged criminal and espionage conspiracy to tamper in the U.S. presidential race in a bid to boost Trump and disadvantage his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

Prosecutors said the agency is controlled by Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, who U.S. officials have said has extensive ties to Russia’s military and political establishment.

Prigozhin, also personally charged by Mueller, has been dubbed “Putin’s cook” by Russian media because his catering business has organized banquets for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Since those indictments, the breadth of the troll farm’s activities has come to light. A report by private experts released to the Senate Intelligence Committee said the Internet Research Agency has tried to manipulate U.S. politics for years and continues to do so today.

The report, by an Oxford University team working with analytical firm Graphika, said Russian trolls urged African-Americans to boycott the 2016 election or to follow wrong voting procedures, while also encouraging right-wing voters to be more confrontational.

Since Donald Trump was elected president, the report said, Russian trolls have put out messages urging Mexican-American and other Hispanic voters to mistrust U.S. institutions.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Mark Hosenball; editing by James Dalgleish and Bernadette Baum)

Shooting near U.S. National Security Agency, several injuried

: An aerial view of the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, U.S. January 29, 2010. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo

By Makini Brice

FORT MEADE, Maryland (Reuters) – Several people were injured during a Wednesday morning shooting at the U.S. National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, the agency said.

The incident occurred about 7 a.m. ET (1200 GMT) when a vehicle tried to enter the U.S. Army installation that houses the agency without authorization, the agency said in a statement. It said shots were fired but that none of the injuries appeared to have been caused by gunshots.

The statement did not make clear whether the shots had been fired by a suspect or by law enforcement and officials at the NSA and Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the incident, did not respond to questions about who fired weapons.

“Weapons were discharged in the course of the incident, which remains under investigation,” the agency said in a statement. “The situation is under control and there is no ongoing security of safety threat.”

It said several people were taken to hospitals from the facility about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Washington.

Police earlier had searched a black sport utility vehicle with what appeared to bullet holes in its windshield, according to video from the scene. Items apparently removed from the vehicle were strewn on the ground and checked by a police dog.

Earlier media reports said that as many as three people had been wounded at the base, which is the home of the NSA, as well as the U.S. Cyber Command and Defense Information School.

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is one of the U.S. government’s main spy agencies. The secretive agency focuses on using technological tools, including the monitoring of internet traffic, to monitor the government’s adversaries.

A White House spokeswoman said President Donald Trump had been briefed on the shooting.

Fort Meade is located just off a major Washington-area highway and motorists occasionally unintentionally take the exit that leads them to its gates, which are manned by armed guards.

In March 2015, two people tried to drive their sports utility vehicle through the NSA’s heavily guarded gate. Officers shot at the vehicle when they refused to stop, killing one of the occupants. The people in the vehicle may have taken a wrong turn after partying and taking drugs, according to news reports.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert, Roberta Rampton and Susan Heavey in Washington and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Trott)