Obama's report on alleged Russian hacks fails to satisfy critics

A report issued by American intelligence services, which claims Russia was behind hacks of the 2016 US presidential election, has failed to satisfy critics who say the Obama administration has no proof Moscow tried to interfere in the vote.

In a joint analysis issued on Thursday, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided technical details about the tools and cyber infrastructure they said Russian civilian and military intelligence services used for the hack attack, code named Grizzly Steppe.

The document said the cyberattack was carried out to “compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the US election, as well as a range of US government, political, and private sector entities.”

But the critics have turned down the 13-page report, saying it is far from the “proof” that they have called for.

“What they released doesn’t add anything to the discussion [about attribution],” said Rob Lee, founder of the critical infrastructure cybersecurity company Dragos.

Security experts say the technical data provided by the agencies is a very basic footprint pointing to Russian intruders, but it often turns out to be a “false positive”.

“What they released is what we would consider to be the lowest form of indicators of compromise,” Lee said.

According to security experts, the technical indicators the US agencies have released in the report are very weak, and it doesn’t achieve what the government says is the purpose of the document.

“Said more simply: the written portion of the report has little to nothing to do with the intended purpose or the technical data released,” Lee said in a blog post.

Some intelligence experts, however, have pointed out that the report’s sketchy attribution is most likely intentional, and its purpose is preventative, not persuasive.

"That [the DHS/FBI report] doesn't engage with the question of attribution seems, to me, to be quite deliberate,” said Matt Tait, founder of the United Kingdom-based security consultancy Capital Alpha Security.

“Its purpose is to act as a measure against Russia — by adding a US stamp of approval to private sector information, and making life harder for [Russia] by exposing some of their malware — not to persuade the public that the DNC hack was by Russia,” he stated.

 “I suspect that this document will go into more detail about what the US knows about Russian interference in the 2016 election, although even this I suspect won't satisfy skeptics,” Tait said.

President-elect Donald Trump has denied that Russia was involved in the cyber interference, and the Obama administration has been under pressure to provide evidence. 

Moscow has rejected the US accusations as "unfounded," and vowed to retaliate.

The White House said in a statement on Thursday that there was the consensus from the US Intelligence Community that Russia's intervention in the US election via cyberhacking as "unacceptable and will not be tolerated."

Republican Senator John McCain on Thursday called Russia's alleged cyberattacks against political organizations an "act of war."

McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has scheduled a hearing for next week on foreign cyberattacks targeting the US, which will also focus on Russian hacking.

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