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DISINFO: There is no evidence of Russia's involvement in cyberattacks and elections interference

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

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Cyber election meddling putin US Presidential Elections

DISINFO: There is no evidence of Russia's involvement in cyberattacks and elections interference

SUMMARY

No evidence was ever presented to Russia on accusations of election interference and cyberattacks (on the United States).

RESPONSE

Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative denying any Russian responsibility in interfering in the elections despite massive evidence on the contrary in the matter of 2020 and 2016 US presidential elections, in addition to the late 2020 SolarWinds hacking.

Russian interference in the US 2020 election has been established beyond doubt not only by US intelligence but also by law enforcement officials, journalists and researchers. Multiple attempts to influence the public discourse to favour one candidate over the other were uncovered throughout 2019 and 2020, though their ultimate success is disputed.

While it is always difficult to attribute responsibility in hacking attempts, multiple state-linked and independent researchers from all over the world have found evidence linking Russia to the SolarWinds hacking.

The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) of the US all concluded that Russia was behind the cyber-espionage incident, as did the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) of the UK.

On January 2021, cybersecurity experts from Kaspersky discovered that the hackers had deployed malicious computer code tied to a hacking group known as “Turla”, widely suspect of operating on behalf of Russia’s FSB security service. On 24 February 2021, Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith declared in a US Senate hearing that “substantial evidence” pointed to Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, and to have found “no evidence” leading them anywhere else. In the same hearing, FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia also pointed that forensics was “not very consistent with cyberespionage from China, North Korea or Iran” but “most consistent with cyberespionage and behaviors we've seen out of Russia”. Other cybersecurity researchers reached similar conclusions.

Read similar cases in our database claiming that there is no evidence of Russian involvement in the SolarWinds hacking attack; or that Russia is not and will never be implicated in cyber-crimes; or that there’s no evidence that Russia was involved in hacking the Bundestag; or that EU countries, not Russia, interfered in US elections 2016 and 2020; or that Washington's frequent accusations about the Russian interference in the US political processes are all unfounded; or that Accusing Russia of cyber-attacks is purely Russophobic.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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