Six Russian military officers sought to disrupt through computer hacking the French election, the Winter Olympics and U.S. businesses, according to a Justice Department indictment unsealed Monday that details attacks on a broad range of political, financial and athletic targets.
The U.S. Justice Department said six members of the Unit 74455 of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, also known as the Main Centre for Special Technologies, had played key roles in attacks on targets ranging from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to the 2017 French elections.
The charges covered four years of malicious cyber activity, from 2015 to 2019.
Justice Department Assistant Attorney General John Demers declined to discuss the more recent attacks against the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, which were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Russia was banned from the world’s top sporting events for four years in December over widespread doping offences, including the Tokyo Games.
The attacks on the 2020 Games are the latest in a string of hacking attempts against international sporting organizations that Western officials and cybersecurity experts say have been orchestrated by Russia since its doping scandal erupted five years ago. Moscow has repeatedly denied the allegations.
