Site icon KonnieMoments

Who is the real Guccifer 2.0? Hacker who stole Democratic National Committee emails during 2016 election unmasked as Russian military intelligence officer

&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpcnt">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpa">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<span class&equals;"wpa-about">Advertisements<&sol;span>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"u top&lowbar;amp">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<amp-ad width&equals;"300" height&equals;"265"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; type&equals;"pubmine"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-siteid&equals;"109460728"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-section&equals;"1">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;amp-ad>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div><h6><span style&equals;"color&colon; &num;080101&semi;"><strong>Hacker Guccifer 2&period;0 who stole Democratic National Committee emails during 2016 election unmasked<&sol;strong><&sol;span><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<h6><span style&equals;"color&colon; &num;080101&semi;"><strong>US investigators traced identity after they didn&&num;8217&semi;t activate VPN client before login<&sol;strong><&sol;span><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<h6><span style&equals;"color&colon; &num;080101&semi;"><strong>Digital footprint led to Russian intelligence agent after he forgot to turn on encryption<&sol;strong><&sol;span><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<h6><span style&equals;"color&colon; &num;080101&semi;"><strong>Guccifer 2&period;0 used platforms such as WordPress and Twitter to publicise a series of leaks in 2016&comma; seemingly to damage Hillary Clinton&&num;8217&semi;s campaign<&sol;strong><&sol;span><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<h6><span style&equals;"color&colon; &num;080101&semi;"><strong>Prolific hacker&comma; Marcel Lazar Lehel&comma; identified as Guccifer&comma; claimed he was from Romania and had been working alone <&sol;strong><&sol;span><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<h6><span style&equals;"color&colon; &num;080101&semi;"><strong>However&comma; security analysts and investigators say &&num;8216&semi;real&&num;8217&semi; hacker now found to work for Russian military intelligence agency GRU<&sol;strong><&sol;span><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<div>&NewLine;<h6 class&equals;"mol-para-with-font"><img class&equals;"alignnone size-full wp-image-291069" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;konniemoments&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;03&sol;Guccifer-3&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Guccifer 3&period;jpg" width&equals;"790" height&equals;"444" &sol;><br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Is hacker Marcel Lazar Lehel&comma; is Guccifer&comma; but is he also Guccifer 2&period;0&quest; Is he from Romania&quest; Was he working alone&quest;  Reports say digital footprints reveal that Guccifer 2&period;0 works for Russian Military Intelligence<&sol;strong><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"mol-para-with-font">Top drawer hacker Marcel Lazar Lehel&comma; when he was arrested in 2014 claimed he was from Romania and had worked alone with the handle  &&num;8220&semi;Guccifer 2&period;0&&num;8221&semi;&comma;  who stole Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 presidential election&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Curiously Lehel was arrested in 2014 and has been serving time in a Romanian jail&comma; subsequent to extradition to the US after serving out his time&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;So who is  &&num;8216&semi;Guccifer 2&period;0&&num;8217&semi;&quest; The name behind the hacking that changed the landscape of the 2016 presidential campaign&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Daily beast says the real Guccifer 2&period;0 is a pseudonym of was a Russian intelligence agent&period;<strong> &&num;8211&semi;  &&num;8216&semi;<&sol;strong>Guccifer 2&period;0&comma; the &&num;8216&semi;lone hacker&&num;8217&semi; who stole Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 presidential election&comma; was a Russian intelligence agent&&num;8217&semi;&comma; the publication reports&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The unnamed officer claimed to be a lone Romanian hacker&comma; but was instead working for a military intelligence agency in Russia known as GRU&comma; The<a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;thedailybeast&period;com&sol;exclusive-lone-dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-slipped-up-and-revealed-he-was-a-russian-intelligence-officer&quest;ref&equals;home"> Daily Beast<&sol;a> reported&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The report says US investigators were able to trace the person&&num;8217&semi;s identity when they failed to activate the VPN client before logging on&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Russian media&comma; identified Romanian hacker Marcel Lazar Lehel&comma; as &OpenCurlyQuote;Guccifer&comma;’  and the  &&num;8216&semi;lone hacker&&num;8217&semi;&comma; who exposed Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;At the time of his arrest Lehel said the ongoing barrage of accusations by politicians in the US who claim that Russia &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;hacked the US election” is part of a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;fake cyber war&period;”<br &sol;>&NewLine;In a series of interviews with Fox News&comma; Lazar attributed Russian hacking accusations to Cold War sentiments&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Americans are crazy about the Russian thing and that Russians are invading the United States&comma;” Lazar said&period;<em><br &sol;>&NewLine;<&sol;em>Lehel&comma; <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;foxnews&period;com&sol;politics&sol;2017&sol;01&sol;04&sol;guccifer-casts-doubt-on-obama-administrations-russia-hacking-claims&period;html" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">spoke<&sol;a> to Fox News from a Romanian prison&comma; where he is serving a sentence for cybercrimes&period; After serving his sentence in Romania&comma; he is to be extradited to the US&comma; where he will also spend time in jail&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Arrested in 2014&comma; Guccifer claimed to have hacked Clinton’s email server while in US custody&period; He also claimed responsibility for breaching computer networks of a number of celebrities and officials in Romania and the US&period; According to his statements&comma; he found emails sent to Clinton’s private clintonemail&period;com address in one hack&comma; and shared his discovery with the public &&num;8211&semi; a claim that was never publicly confirmed by the FBI&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The sequence becomes relevant to the question&comma; who or what is the re-incarnation Guccifer 2&period;0&quest;<br &sol;>&NewLine;That forensic determination has substantial implications now that the special counsel in Robert Mueller&comma; who is investigating possible Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections&comma; has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The general belief is that the attribution of Guccifer 2&period;0 as an officer of Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency would cross the Kremlin threshold—and move the investigation closer to the president&&num;8217&semi;s personal nexus with the case&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The attribution of Guccifer 2&period;0 as an officer of Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency brings the investigation closer to the Kremlin’s doorstep—and to Trump himself&comma;” according to a source&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Daily Beast reports that Trump’s longtime political adviser Roger Stone after admitting being in touch with Guccifer over Twitter’s direct messaging service&comma;  as far back as August 2016&comma;  published an article on the Steve Bannon led&comma; pro-Trump publication&comma; Breitbart News postulating that&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It doesn’t seem to be the Russians that hacked the DNC&comma; but instead a hacker who goes by the name of Guccifer 2&period;0&period;”<br &sol;>&NewLine;However&comma; just five months later&comma; the CIA&comma; NSA&comma; and FBI all assessed &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;with high confidence” that &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Russian military intelligence&comma; otherwise known as GRU&rpar;&comma; used the Guccifer 2&period;0 persona and one other &&num;8211&semi; DCLeaks&period;com &&num;8211&semi; to release US victim data&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The catch is that the assessment did not directly identify the handle &&num;8216&semi;Guccifer&&num;8217&semi; as belonging to a Russian intelligence officer&period; Nor did it provide any evidence for its assertions&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;This report now exposes the powerful reason to connect Guccifer to the GRU&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The related sequence of events is that Guccifer 2&period;0 came into existence on June 15&comma; 2016&comma; hours after a report by a computer security firm forensically tied Russia to an intrusion at the Democratic National Committee&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The agencies noted that In a series of blog posts and tweets over the following seven months&comma; the Guccifer persona published a smattering of the DNC documents while gamely projecting an image as an independent Romanian hacktivist who’d breached the DNC on a lark&period; As Stone’s Breitbart piece demonstrated&comma; Guccifer provided Moscow with a counter-narrative for the election interference&period; Oddly&comma; the disinformation campaign ceased completely right as Trump took office&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Guccifer hid behind the firewall of  a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;<a class&equals;"LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;guccifer2&period;wordpress&period;com&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;15&sol;dnc&sol;">lone hacker<&sol;a>” who perpetrated the digital DNC break-in&period; Most analysts <a class&equals;"LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;motherboard&period;vice&period;com&sol;en&lowbar;us&sol;article&sol;wnxgwq&sol;guccifer-20-is-likely-a-russian-government-attempt-to-cover-up-their-own-hack">from the outset&comma; were skeptical<&sol;a> of the explanation&period; Motherboard conducted a devastating interview with Guccifer that <a class&equals;"LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;motherboard&period;vice&period;com&sol;en&lowbar;us&sol;article&sol;d7ydwy&sol;why-does-dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-talk-like-this">exploded the account’s claims<&sol;a> of being a native Romanian speaker&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Based on forensic clues in some of Guccifer’s leaks&comma; and other evidence&comma; a consensus quickly formed among security experts that Guccifer was completely notional&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Almost immediately various cyber security companies and individuals were skeptical of Guccifer 2&period;0 and the backstory that he had generated for himself&comma;” said Kyle Ehmke&comma; an intelligence researcher at the cyber security firm ThreatConnect&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We started seeing these inconsistencies that led back to the idea that he was created hastily… by the individual or individuals that affected the DNC compromise&period;”<br &sol;>&NewLine;Skepticism aside&comma; tracking the link proved quite elusive&period; Metadata in his emails always ended at the same data center in France&period; It was eventually discovered that Guccifer was connecting through an anonymizing service called Elite VPN&comma; a virtual private networking service that had an exit point in France but was domiciled in Russia&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"PullQuote"><&sol;div>&NewLine;<h6>&NewLine;<img class&equals;"alignnone size-full wp-image-291068" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;konniemoments&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;03&sol;Guccifer-2-2&period;png" alt&equals;"Guccifer 2" width&equals;"642" height&equals;"403" &sol;><strong>Guccifer 2&period;0&comma; the &&num;8216&semi;lone hacker&&num;8217&semi; who stole Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 presidential election&comma; was a Russian intelligence agent&comma; according to declassified US security reports<&sol;strong><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"InlineNewsletter">&NewLine;<div class&equals;"InlineNewsletter&lowbar;&lowbar;main">&NewLine;<form class&equals;"InlineNewsletter&lowbar;&lowbar;form">&NewLine;<div class&equals;"InlineNewsletter&lowbar;&lowbar;message">&NewLine;<p>The key to the puzzle reportedly&comma; was provided on one occasion when Guccifer 2&period;0  failed to activate the VPN client before logging on&period; Consequently he left a real&comma; Moscow-based Internet Protocol address in the server logs of an American social media company&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;That digital footprint led back to a particular GRU officer working out of GRU headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow&period; Security firms and declassified U&period;S&period; intelligence findings previously identified the GRU as the agency behind the DNC email theft&comma; as well as&comma;  breaches at NATO&comma; Obama’s White House&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;form>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"artSplitter mol-img-group">&NewLine;<div class&equals;"mol-img">&NewLine;<h6 class&equals;"image-wrap fff-pic"><strong><img class&equals;"alignnone size-full wp-image-291065" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;konniemoments&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;03&sol;Hillary-Clinton-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Hillary Clinton 1&period;jpg" width&equals;"1180" height&equals;"842" &sol;>Hillary Clinton&&num;8217&semi;s presidential bid was severely handicapped when Guccifer disseminated negative materials about her on social media<&sol;strong><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>Guccifer 2&period;0 reportedly&comma; used platforms such as WordPress and Twitter to publicize a series of leaks in 2016&comma; allegedly aimed at damaging the campaign of the democratic candidate&comma; Hillary Clinton&period;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"mol-para-with-font">The new report says a Moscow-based Internet Protocol address was left in the server logs of an American social media company&comma; according to The Daily Beast <a class&equals;"class" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;thedailybeast&period;com&sol;exclusive-lone-dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-slipped-up-and-revealed-he-was-a-russian-intelligence-officer&quest;ref&equals;home" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"nofollow noopener">report<&sol;a>&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Guccifer 2&period;0 was uncovered as a particular GRU officer working out of the agency&&num;8217&semi;s headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The revelation is likely to deepen suspicions that Russia attempted to interfere in the US elections&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Guccifer 2&period;0 used platforms such as WordPress and Twitter to publicise a series of leaks in 2016&comma; seemingly to damage Hillary Clinton&&num;8217&semi;s campaign&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;These included emails between her campaign staff and Democratic National Committee employees&comma; and the Hillary Clinton Foundation donor database&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The hacker also proclaimed that the DNC&&num;8217&semi;s stolen documents were in WikiLeaks&&num;8217&semi; hands&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"artSplitter mol-img-group">&NewLine;<h6 class&equals;"imageCaption"><b><img class&equals;"alignnone wp-image-291064" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;konniemoments&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;03&sol;Guccifer-1&period;png" alt&equals;"Guccifer 1&period;png" width&equals;"669" height&equals;"417" &sol;>Reports say Guccifer 2&period;0 used platforms such as WordPress and Twitter to publicize a steady diet of leaks in 2016&comma; aimed at damaging Hillary Clinton&&num;8217&semi;s campaign<&sol;b><&sol;h6>&NewLine;<p>As the investigation by  special counsel Robert Mueller progresses&comma; last month he indicted 13 Russian nationals tied to the Internet Research Agency &&num;8216&semi;troll factory&&num;8217&semi; in St Petersburg&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"mol-para-with-font">He accused them of spreading propaganda to interfere in and influence the US elections&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;It is now possible that Mueller will be able to charge Guccifer 2&period;0 if the individual has been uncovered&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div id&equals;"inread&lowbar;player" class&equals;"adHolder" data-adverts-ad&equals;"&lbrace;&quot&semi;pos&quot&semi;&colon;&quot&semi;inread&lowbar;player&quot&semi;&comma;&quot&semi;size&quot&semi;&colon;&lbrack;&lbrack;636&comma;1&rsqb;&rsqb;&comma;&quot&semi;id&quot&semi;&colon;&quot&semi;inread&lowbar;player&quot&semi;&comma;&quot&semi;parentId&quot&semi;&colon;&quot&semi;inread&lowbar;player&quot&semi;&comma;&quot&semi;type&quot&semi;&colon;&quot&semi;636x1&quot&semi;&comma;&quot&semi;extraZoneOptions&quot&semi;&colon;&lbrace;&rcub;&rcub;" data-google-query-id&equals;"CILh5r77gtoCFQmfyAod2JkF5w"><&sol;div>&NewLine;

Exit mobile version