Embassy in United States of America Embassy ● Roster captured ● host list

Insurance Journal stated on February 27th that “a 21-year-old US soldier accused of trying to sell AT&T call records of Donald Trump’s family members also attempted to pawn off sensitive data to a foreign intelligence organization, according to court documents. Cameron Wagenius pleaded guilty earlier this year to unlawfully posting and transferring confidential AT&T phone records, including of Kamala Harris and FBI informants. The US government has also accused him of attempting to extort AT&T Inc., asking for $500,000 to delete those confidential records in November last year while on active duty with the US army, stationed at Fort Cavazos. The records were stolen as part of a wider cyber campaign against Snowflake customers in the summer of 2024, which involved at least 10 organizations including Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and Advance Auto Parts Inc. According to a memorandum filed on Wednesday by the US government which asked a judge to keep Wagenius detained, the extortion was “only a small part of Wagenius’ malicious activity.” In November — the same month he posted the AT&T data for sale — Wagenius allegedly communicated with an email address he believed belonged to an unidentified country’s military intelligence service in an attempt to sell stolen information, prosecutors allege. Days later, he Googled “can hacking be treason.” “Wagenius conducted online searches about how to defect to countries that do not extradite to the United States and that he previously attempted to sell hacked information to at least one foreign intelligence service,” according to the memorandum. Wagenius also carried out Google searches about the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C and “U.S. military personnel defecting to Russia,” prosecutors added.”

The Wall Street Journal published this article on June 28th stating that “inside a stately art nouveau building in central Vienna, special-forces officers armed with submachine guns guard the home of Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist whose Academy Award-winning documentary exposed the Kremlin’s attempt to kill opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Two years ago, Austrian intelligence and U.S. law enforcement warned Grozev that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spies were plotting to kill him. After living with his family for two decades in Austria, the Bulgaria-born Grozev fled to the U.S. in 2023. Now, when he returns to visit his family, who remained behind in Vienna, he receives a degree of state protection that rivals that of Austria’s chancellor, officials say. The failed murder plot is one of a series of incidents that show how Vienna has emerged as Russia’s new espionage hub in Europe after capitals there expelled 600 spies posing as diplomats in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. Dozens of these spies have since resurfaced in Austria, intelligence officials there say. In the past two years, the number of Russian state employees in Austria swelled to over 500 from 300 to 400, over a half of whom are diplomats and administrators, according to intelligence officials. Up to a half of them operate as spies, Austrian intelligence officials estimate. Last year, neighboring Germany closed the Russian consulate in Munich, which German officials said was hosting a number of spies. The Russian staff simply relocated to Salzburg, an Austrian city across the border to the east, Austrian intelligence officials say. Vienna is now a base for Russian clandestine operations, including financing and logistical support for murder, sabotage and recruitment across Europe, as well as industrial espionage and influence operations, according to over a dozen Austrian, European and U.S. intelligence and government officials. The Russian Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.”

CNN reported on April 11th that “Russian state-backed hackers have stolen email correspondence between US government agencies and Microsoft via a breach of the software giant’s systems, US officials confirmed on Thursday. Microsoft has notified “several” US federal agencies that the hackers may have stolen emails that Microsoft sent to those agencies that included login information such as usernames, or passwords, Eric Goldstein, a senior official at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), told reporters. “At this time, we are not aware of any agency production environments that have experienced a compromise as a result of a credential exposure,” Goldstein said. In other words, a CISA official told CNN, there is no evidence yet that the hackers had used the stolen credentials to successfully break into federal computer systems that are actively in use. But the breach of Microsoft emails is still forcing the tech giant and US cyber officials to scramble to ensure there is no further damage at the hands of the alleged Russian operatives. CISA on Thursday publicly released an “emergency directive” that orders civilian agencies potentially affected by the hacking campaign to shore up their defenses. CISA described the potential exposure of agency login credentials as an “unacceptable risk to agencies.” CNN has requested comment from the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC. The hackers in question are an infamous cyber-espionage group that US officials have previously tied to Russia’s foreign intelligence service. It’s the latest twist in a hacking incident that Microsoft first revealed in January but has only grown more serious as new details emerge. In March, Microsoft revealed that the hackers accessed some of Microsoft’s core software systems and were using that information for follow-on attacks on Microsoft customers. Days after Microsoft disclosed the breach in January, another Big Tech company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, said the same hackers had breached its cloud-based email systems. The full extent and exact purpose of the hacking activity isn’t clear, but experts say the group responsible has a history of wide-ranging intelligence gathering campaigns in support of the Kremlin. The same Russian group was behind the infamous breach of several US agency email systems using software made by US contractor SolarWinds, which was revealed in 2020. The hackers had access for months to the unclassified email accounts at the departments of Homeland Security and Justice, among other agencies, before the spying operation was discovered. Russia denied involvement in the activity.”

CNN reported on February 15th that “the FBI and its international allies disrupted a network of over 1,000 hacked internet routers that Russia’s military intelligence agency was using for cyber espionage operations against the United States and its European allies, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday. The law enforcement operation used a court order to cut off access to the home and small-business routers hacked by the Russian GRU military intelligence agency, kicking them out and “lock[ing] the door behind them,” Wray said at the Munich Security Conference. The Russian hackers were using the network of hacked routers, which is known as a botnet, to target US and foreign governments, and “military, security and corporate organizations” for intelligence gathering, the Justice Department announced. The Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wray’s allegations. Wray also used his podium in Munich — where intelligence officials from around the world gather every year — to reiterate US warnings that Russia and China-backed hacking teams have long sought a foothold in US energy and telecommunications networks. US officials worry that Beijing could use that access to take networks offline in the event of a crisis.”

RFERL published this research on November 29th stating that “just two days before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko addressed the lower chamber of parliament on what would become the Kremlin’s initial steps to annex territory in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions. His introductory remarks included accusations that Ukraine was “sabotaging” negotiations held by the Trilateral Contact Group consisting of Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the 57-nation regional security body based in Vienna that currently finds itself in crisis amid Russian vetoes ahead of a key ministerial council meeting on November 30. Rudenko was intimately familiar with the OSCE, whose leadership immediately condemned Russia’s invasion two days later, and not just because he had previously served as a senior Russian envoy to the organization. At the time of Russia’s invasion and the trilateral negotiations, Rudenko’s wife was serving as a senior political and administrative assistant in the OSCE secretary-general’s office. This gave her access to high-level OSCE meetings, events, and information, according to one EU diplomat. Rudenko’s wife, a Kyrgyz-born woman named Saltanat Sakembaeva, is one of several Russian citizens whose employment with the OSCE has raised concerns over the Kremlin’s inside access to the executive body of an organization that has played a central role in monitoring Russian aggression in Ukraine and attempting to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv, an RFE/RL investigation has found. These individuals include career Russian diplomat Anton Vushkarnik, who served for four years at the Russian Embassy in Washington and gave a Capitol Hill briefing backing Moscow’s support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. E-mails obtained by RFE/RL show that Vushkarnik, who currently serves as a senior strategic adviser in the OSCE Secretariat, sent a U.S. congressional staffer a YouTube video likening Ukrainian politicians to Nazis, as well as messages claiming “homosexual authoritarianism” is “threatening America” and using the homophobic slur “f*gs.” Meanwhile, a woman who served as an interpreter for Russian President Vladimir Putin during talks with then-U.S. President Donald Trump is currently employed in the Vienna Liaison Office of the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly. The former interpreter, Daria Boyarskaya, specifically received that assignment from the Kremlin in order to distract the U.S. leader, according to an ex-White House official.” The same article also states that “Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and an expert on Russia’s security services, told RFE/RL that “it is absolutely clear” that operatives with the counterintelligence directorate of the Federal Security Service “would have been in the know about Sakembaeva’s remarkable career, and they would not have missed the chance to exploit it.” “Even if she was not recruited as an actual agent, she certainly would have been someone who at some point might have been ‘asked’ to do something — such as accessing sensitive information — and she wouldn’t have had the option to say no,” Soldatov said. Sakembaeva and Rudenko did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the Russian Foreign Ministry or Russia’s permanent mission to the OSCE.”

Politico reported on August 30th that “new U.S. intelligence shows North Korea and Russia are “actively advancing” high-level talks for additional weapons and other materials to assist Moscow’s brutal war in Ukraine, the Biden administration disclosed on Wednesday. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu recently traveled to North Korea to try to secure additional artillery ammunition, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. Since that visit, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un have exchanged letters pledging to increase their cooperation. Also after Shoigu’s visit, another group of Russian officials traveled to Pyongyang for follow-up discussions about potential arms deals between the two nations, Kirby said. Under the potential agreements, North Korea would ship Russia “significant quantities and multiple types” of weapons for use in Ukraine, he said. The potential deals also include the provision of raw materials that could help boost Russia’s military manufacturing capability, Kirby said. “Any arms deal between the DPRK and Russia would directly violate a number of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Kirby said, referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s official name. “We’re continuing to monitor this situation closely. And we urge the DPRK to cease its arms negotiations with Russia and abide by the public commitments that Pyongyang has made to not provide or sell arms to Russia.” The alleged arms talks come as Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine drags on with no end in sight. A Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed to make major breakthroughs, despite ample military support from the West. Both Russia and Ukraine are burning through ammunition and seeking any edge they can in a bid to gain a permanent upper hand. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

Following this week’s stories #33 and #65, Reuters reported on April 8th that “Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leak of several classified U.S. military documents posted on social media that offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, while the Justice Department said separately it was probing the leak. The documents appear to have been altered to lower the number of casualties suffered by Russian forces, the U.S. officials said, adding their assessments were informal and separate from the investigation into the leak itself. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter and declined to discuss the documents in any detail. The Kremlin and Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An initial batch of documents circulated on sites including Twitter and Telegram, dated March 1 and bearing markings showing them classified as “Secret” and “Top Secret.”.”

On January 6th Reuters reported that “a Russian hacking team known as Cold River targeted three nuclear research laboratories in the United States this past summer, according to internet records reviewed by Reuters and five cyber security experts. Between August and September, as President Vladimir Putin indicated Russia would be willing to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory, Cold River targeted the Brookhaven (BNL), Argonne (ANL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL), according to internet records that showed the hackers creating fake login pages for each institution and emailing nuclear scientists in a bid to make them reveal their passwords. Reuters was unable to determine why the labs were targeted or if any attempted intrusion was successful. A BNL spokesperson declined to comment. LLNL did not respond to a request for comment. An ANL spokesperson referred questions to the U.S. Department of Energy, which declined to comment. Cold River has escalated its hacking campaign against Kyiv’s allies since the invasion of Ukraine, according to cybersecurity researchers and western government officials. The digital blitz against the U.S. labs occurred as U.N. experts entered Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory to inspect Europe’s biggest atomic power plant and assess the risk of what both sides said could be a devastating radiation disaster amid heavy shelling nearby. Cold River, which first appeared on the radar of intelligence professionals after targeting Britain’s foreign office in 2016, has been involved in dozens of other high-profile hacking incidents in recent years, according to interviews with nine cybersecurity firms. Reuters traced email accounts used in its hacking operations between 2015 and 2020 to an IT worker in the Russian city of Syktyvkar. “This is one of the most important hacking groups you’ve never heard of,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. “They are involved in directly supporting Kremlin information operations.” Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the domestic security agency that also conducts espionage campaigns for Moscow, and Russia’s embassy in Washington did not respond to emailed requests for comment.” On January 6th, James Pearson published photos of a member of “Cold River”, 35-year old Andrey Korinets, bodybuilder and IT administration by day, member of “Cold River” by night.

Mikka Padilla of the SOFREP magazine published an article for the 1977 FBI covert surveillance Operation MONOPOLY. An FBI covert operation to spy on the, then new, Russian Embassy in Washington DC.