Updated below
A wide review of news sources finds an undeniable patter of international “Russian hacking” claims:
- Many, if not all such accusation, are based on say-so by some anonymous “official” or self-promoting “expert”.
- Many, if not all such accusation, are rebutted within a few days or weeks.
- News about any alleged “Russian hacking” is widely distributed and easy to find.
- News of the debunking of such claims is reported only sparsely (if at all) and more difficult to retrieve.
Examples:
Source: Jeff Darcy, Cleveland.com – see bigger picture here
Ukraine
- Russia hacked into Ukraine artillery units, report claims, CBCnews – Dec 22 2016
- Ukraine’s military denies Russian hack attack, AFP – Jan 6 2017
United States
- Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say, WaPo – Dec 31 2016
- Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted Vermont utility, say people close to investigation, WaPo – Jan 2 2017
Germany
- Sicherheitskreise: Russland hackte geheime Bundestagsakten (Russia hacked secret parliament papers), FAZ – Dec 11 2016
- Quelle für Enthüllungen im Bundestag vermutet (Internal source suspected in parliament leaks), FAZ – Dec 17 2016
Germany
- Russian Hackers Are Targeting Germany Now, Too, Wired – Dec 10 2016
- German Intelligence Agencies Find No Evidence Of Russian Interference, Newsweek – Feb 7 2017
France
- Cyberattack on French presidential front-runner bears Russian ‘fingerprints,’ research group says, WaPo – Apr 25 2017
- France Says No Trace of Russian Hacking Macron, AP – Jun 1 2017
Qatar
- CNN Exclusive: US suspects Russian hackers planted fake news behind Qatar crisis, CNN – Jun 7, 2017
- Qatar says news agency hacking linked to states boycotting Doha, Reuters – Jun 20 2017
United Kingdom
- Cyber-attack on UK parliament: Russia is suspected culprit, Guardian – Jun 25 2017
- Private not state hackers likely to have targeted UK parliament: sources, Reuters – Jul 6 2017
The undeniable patter of “Russian hacking” is that any claim thereof is likely not true and will be debunked in due time.
These remarks on the “Russian hacking” allegation in relation to the U.S. election are therefore quite appropriate:
President Trump again cast a skeptical eye on intelligence community assessments that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election, saying Thursday while on a visit to Poland that “nobody really knows for sure” what happened.
…
Trump also compared the intelligence about Russian interference with the faulty assessment that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2002, which provided President Bush with a justification to go to war.”Guess what, they were wrong, and that led to one big mess,” he said.
Update (July 7 3:00am Est):
To frame today’s Trump-Putin talks at the G20 meeting in Hamburg (and to prove the above, timely post correct?) U.S. media issued three new story today implicating “Russian hacking”. The stories are made up of rumors, fearmongering and of reports of banal phishing attempts on some administrative systems. While all three implicate Russia they naturally contain ZERO evidence to anything related to that country.
- Russia steps up spying efforts after election, CNN – Jul 6 2017
- Hackers Are Targeting Nuclear Facilities, Homeland Security Dept. and F.B.I. Say, NYT – Jul 6 2017
- Russians Are Said to Be Suspects in Nuclear Site Hackings, Bloomberg – Jul 6 2017
In the very likely case that the above described pattern of “Russian hacking” holds, all three stories will be debunked within the next few days or weeks.
