Washington: Moscow is trying to split American society through social networks

Moscow is constantly trying to sow a split in American society through social networks. This was stated by US Minister of Internal Security Kirste Nielsen, reports Bloomberg.

According to Nielsen, American intelligence observes "Russian constant attempts to use social media, sympathizing with public opinion leaders and other areas of work to sow discord and split among Americans."

The official assured that her department will help the election commissions of the States and Municipalities to protect herself from cyber attacks from Russia and from any other places. According to Nielsen, there are no signs that in the intermediate elections to Congress in 2018, Russia is going to repeat the intervention on the same scale as it was during the 2016 presidential campaign.

On Friday, US National Intelligence Director Dan Cowts said that critically important elements of the US national infrastructure are under threat of cyber attacks. According to Cowts, Washington is already attacking from abroad, Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are doing this most actively, which "penetrate our digital infrastructure and commit various cyber surgery and attacks against goals in the United States." "Russia was the most aggressive among state actors, there is no doubt about this. And they continue forces aimed at undermining our democracy," Coutts emphasized. He compared the current situation with the one that developed before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

On the same day, the large jury of the Colombia district in absentia charged with cyber attacks 12 military personnel of the Main Directorate of the General Staff (former GRU) of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

According to the prosecution, employees of two military units of the GRU in 2016 stole passwords and users' names from employees and volunteers of the presidential campaign Hillary Clinton, including the head of the headquarters of John Podesta. Thanks to this, they were able to access their e -mail boxes, computer networks of the election committee in the Congress of the Democratic Party and its National Committee. Attackers were able to steal documents and electronic correspondence of the democrats, monitored the work of dozens of headquarters, and also introduced into their computers hundreds of malware files to steal new passwords and support access to networks.

The defendants posted stolen documents on dcleaks.com on behalf of the anonymous "American Hactivists". Later, they started a fake blog of the never -existing Guccifer 2.0 hacker, who called himself a native of Romania and took responsibility for hacking.

GRU employees also hacked the computers of state committees for election, state secretaries and companies that create election software in order to steal personal data of voters.