Russian Cyber Attacks on U.S. Computer Systems Has Reached Unprecedented Levels

Cory Bennett

April 12, 2015

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Russia’s cyberattacks grow more brazen

Russia has ramped up cyber attacks against the United States to an unprecedented level since President Obama imposed sanctions last year on President Putin’s government over its intervention in Ukraine.

The emboldened attacks are hitting the highest levels of the U.S. government, according to reports, in what former officials call a “dramatic” shift in strategy.

The efforts are also targeting a wide array of U.S. businesses, pilfering intellectual property in an attempt to level the playing field for Russian industries hurt by sanctions.

“They’re coming under a lot of pressure from the sanctions — their financial industry, their energy industry” said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which monitors critical infrastructure attacks. “And they’re obviously trying to leverage cyber intrusion and cyber espionage to compensate for that.”

Crowdstrike has recorded over 10,000 Russian intrusions at U.S. companies in 2015 alone. That’s a meteoric rise from the “dozens per month” that Alperovitch said the firm noted this time last year, just as the U.S. was imposing its sanctions.