SKDKnickerbocker – Biden Campaign Advisory Firm Targeted by Suspected Russian State Hackers
Russian state-sponsored hackers attempted to breach the IT network of SKDKnickerbocker, a strategy and communications firm that works for the Joe Biden Presidential campaign. The unsuccessful cyber attacks on SKDKnickerbocker occurred over the last two months, according to a report from Reuters.
Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) alerted SKDKnickerbocker about the attempts. The cyber attacks including phishing emails as well as other undisclosed tactics.
What is SKDKnickerbocker?
SKDKnickerbocker is a political campaign strategy and communications firm founded in 2004. Clients are Democratic Party politicians. The company is headquartered in Washington, DC but also has offices in New York City, Los Angeles, CA, and Albany, New York. SKDKnickerbocker worked for six presidential campaigns and many congressional contests.
The Mueller Report – Russian Spear Phishing Emails
Previous Russian Election Interference – Social Media
Russia has a history of interfering with the US presidential elections. Twitter reported that some 36,000 Twitter accounts sent out 1.4 million tweets containing election-related information. Similarly, Facebook reported that 126 million Facebook users were exposed to an advertisement from Russia connected Internet Research Association. These social media posts spread misinformation and campaign propaganda.
The Mueller Report
The infamous Mueller Report released in 2019, detailed numerous Russian cyber security attacks on the election courtesy of Russia’s GRU Military Intelligence Service. The attacks intended to run interference on the 2016 presidential campaign. State sponsored Russian threat actors targeted the Hillary Clinton campaign with spear spear phishing emails and manage to harvest the email credentials of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. According to Special Counsel Robert S Mueller, III the attackers targeted both volunteers and professional campaign workers along with email credentials. Russia’s GRU also attacked The IT network at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). They managed to steal hundreds of thousands of documents according to the Mueller report.
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Microsoft, the Joe Biden campaign, and SKDKnickerbocker all declined to comment on the incidents.
Russian Hacking of UK Official Communications
Russia isn’t only interested in hacking the United States. In July of last year the United Kingdom {UK} opened an official investigation to discover more information about Russian hacking of British diplomatic communications. A treasure trove of sensitive documents focused on senior UK politicians and officials was Published online. The journalist Isabel Oakeshott denied receiving the data from Russian threat actors.
Russia’s Fancy Bear Attacked Corporate Network
Last year Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) reported that Russia’s GRU Military Intelligence Service, was working to compromise corporate IT networks through unsecured Internet of Things devices. Simple IoT devices like printers and routers, often go unsecured and unpatched. These leave an opening for threat actors to breach a corporate network, steal company secrets, or infected with malware.
