GRU’s military unit 29155 (161st Specialist Training Center) has been historically engaged in kinetic active measures such as subversion, assassinations or sabotage. Soviet or Russian active measures refer to covert operations aimed at influencing third countries’ politics or public opinion. They include from cyberspace activities to “wet stuff” (or “bloody stuff”, or simply “stuff that […]
(Cyber) GRU (XIV): conclusions
In this work, we have analyzed mainly the structure, targets and TTP of the GRU in the cyber field, based on the information brought to light during 2018 and which allowed to obtain a detailed knowledge of the Service and its activities, not only to intelligence services, but also to poor analysts like us who […]
(Cyber) GRU (XIII): questions and conspiracies
Everything that happened in 2018 in relation to the GRU, both the public accusations of different governments and the private investigations in relation to their activities, make us ask ourselves different questions; surely all of them have an answer, but we do not know them, or at least not for sure… so, we can also […]
(Cyber) GRU (XII): OPSEC
The GRU members expelled from the Netherlands used basic OPSEC measures, such as throwing out their own rubbish while staying in a hotel; nevertheless, their arrest revealed the lack of other equally basic security measures, that undoubtedly will have given the Service plenty to talk about. Perhaps the proximity operations – at least in the […]
(Cyber) GRU (XI): TTP
The information that has come to light in recent months, especially Mueller’s accusation, has identified different tactics and techniques of the GRU, some of them previously known – and in many cases linked to APT28 – and others that, although we could all imagine, no one had previously confirmed. These TTPs are summarized in the […]
(Cyber) GRU (X): objectives
Apart from some more specific objectives, such as Westinghouse Electric Company’s – with business in nuclear technology – or domestic routers that can be compromised to orchestrate a distributed attack against the real objective, the information published in 2018 has brought to light five major GRU objectives, consistent with the interests of the Service and […]