Back in January, police in various countries of the world took down a botnet called “Emotet,” which was the platform from which one-fourth of cybercrimes were launched. Although Wikipedia, the unfailing herald of truth, had blamed Emotet on Russian hackers, it was actually run by Ukrainians. Police found dozens of computers, several millions of dollars worth of gold bars, and hundreds of hard drives in their raid on its operating center in Ukraine.
Now the U.S. is accusing Russia of being part of the cybercrime that has shut down Colonial Pipeline — a ransomware attack perpetrated by a group called DarkSide, according to the FBI. “So far there is no evidence ... that Russia is involved,” Biden admitted to reporters, although he added, “They have some responsibility to deal with this.”
On what basis is it claimed that DarkSide is operated by Russians? The ransomware does not run on systems whose language is set to Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Armenian, Georgian, Kazakh, Turkmen, Romanian, and a few other languages. Although Russian is on the list, it’s hardly the only language. And why would Russian hackers go out of their way to protect Ukraine, Georgia, or Romania, which aren’t exactly among that nation’s greatest allies?
