Ariz. servers used in Russian hack?
New indictments detail connection to state
Russian military intelligence officers rented computer servers in Arizona to monitor Democrats as part of a vast effort to shape the 2016 presidential election, the latest federal indictment from the special counsel claims.
The indictment of 12 Russian cyberspies unsealed Friday doesn’t specify which company provided the online connections needed to track Democrats’ plans.
It does suggest, however, that the servers were part of an elaborate computer chain that ran from Arizona to the Kremlin.
Robert Mueller’s legal team unveiled its latest allegations as part of its ongoing probe of Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible obstruction of justice afterward.
The indictment came just days before President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland.
For his part, Trump dismissed the indictment as part of what he labeled a “witch hunt.”
“I think that we’re being hurt very badly by the, I would call it the witch hunt; I would call it the rigged witch hunt,” Trump said after meetings with British Prime Minister Theresa May. “I think that really hurts our country and it
really hurts our relationship with Russia.”
His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, didn’t downplay the indictment in a tweet, but he said it didn’t implicate the White House.
The indictments “are good news for all Americans. The Russians are nailed. No Americans are involved,” the former New York City mayor wrote.
Giuliani also asked Mueller “to end this pursuit of the president and say President Trump is completely innocent.”
In a series of tweets of his own, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said the indictments add to the information about Russian interference in the elections and called on Trump to confront Putin about it directly or cancel the summit.
McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has made countering cyberwarfare one of the panel’s priorities.
Arizona’s tangential involvement in international cyberspying wouldn’t be a total surprise. The Phoenix area has dozens of computer data centers and is one of the most popular locations for them in the nation.
“It’s not just happenstance,” said Neil Proctor, the chief technology officer at Phoenix-based Bigfork Technologies. “Arizona is pretty unique in that it’s pretty rare with natural disasters and, at least Phoenix specifically, has great access to power and internet infrastructure.”
That reliable platform helped route Russian surveillance of Democratic activities back to Moscow, the indictment claims.
Russian officers hacked the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign operations, U.S. authorities say.
Beginning in April 2016, the Russians were plugged into the DCCC’s computers after hacking into email accounts, the indictment said.
Using servers in Arizona, the Russians then monitored at least 10 DCCC employees.
The Russians could follow the keystrokes and see the screens of the employees’ computers.
This gave the Russians information about the DCCC’s finances and personal information about the employees, including their own banking information.
By the end of April 2016, the Russian officers tied the information passing through the Arizona servers to an overseas computer, in part to obscure any connection to the Russians, the indictment said.
By June 2016, information from the DCCC employees had given the Russians access to 33 DNC accounts as well.
Among the items the Russians searched for within the Democrats’ computers were items with the terms “hillary,” “cruz” and “trump,” the indictment said.
They also copied DCCC folders labeled “Benghazi Investigations” and also reviewed information considered opposition research and field operations.
The Russians moved the copied files through computers based in Illinois, the indictment said.
While the location of the data centers used to monitor stolen information probably didn’t matter to the Russians, Arizona was specifically targeted by politically charged Facebook ads before the 2016 election.
At least 18 Facebook ads, apparently paid for in Russian rubles, specifically targeted Arizona audiences; many others were seen by broad audience types across the country, including in Arizona.
Overall, the suspicious ads on Facebook and Instagram were seen by more than 140 million people in the United States.
In 2016, the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office disclosed that a known Russian hacker had put an Arizona county elections official’s username and password online.