US Vigilante Hacker ‘The Jester’ Attacks Russia Government Website

Last Friday, a notorious American Hacker known as “The Jester” hacked a Russian government ministry’s website as payback for attacking American targets.

‘The Jester’ left this message:

“Comrades!

We interrupt regular scheduled Russian Foreign Affairs Website programming to bring you the following important message,” he wrote. “Knock it off. You may be able to push around nations around you, but this is America. Nobody is impressed.”

His hacking activity includes a very weird and annoying sound that whenever people visits the site they hear an “attention-demanding” dial tone right after an American emergency broadcast alert message.

MID.ru is the official website of the Russian institution that is responsible for operations concerning the country’s international diplomacy. It is the Russian counterpart of the U.S. Department of State.

The U.S government accused Russia of interfering in American politics. Recently, US accused Russian intelligence agencies of being involved in hacking Democratic National Committee private information. These include emails and the sites of other Democratic Party-linked organizations. Moreover, they also leaked damning information to influence the election toward Donald Trump and away from Hilary Clinton.

Russia is also incriminated of publishing stolen emails to WikiLeaks. Russia and President Vladimir Putin however, has denied all the accusations.

The Jester said, “Let’s get real, I know it’s you, even if by proxy, and you know it’s you,” he wrote. “Now, get to your room. Before I lose my temper.”

‘The Jester’ is not new to hacktivism. He has taken down jihadist websites, hacking into communication forums, and identifying potential terrorist threats. Hence, ex-FBI agents have tagged him as “the Batman of the internet”.

Russia hacked out of frustration

The Jester said he chose to attack Russia out of frustration for the massive DNS cyber attack that knocked out a portion of the internet in the United States on Friday.

“I wanted to poke them in the eye and stop feeling like US is just taking it on the chin. Again,” he said. “I’m not gonna sit around watching these f—-rs laughing at us.”

The Jester used a simple hacking trick. He found a flaw in the website’s computer code and exploited his own code to gain access.

“It’s 4 a.m. in Moscow right now and a weekend. I’m hoping they can’t fix the hole til Monday,” he said.

As of 11 a.m. ET Saturday, the message was still online. The notorious hacker warns Russia to take his threats seriously. There are other American hackers with this kind of capability.

“Think of this as a professional courtesy,” his public warning states. “Or if you prefer a message from ‘USA with love.'”

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Symantec Warns: Another Hacker Group Targets SWIFT Users

A second hacking group has pursued to rob banks using deceptive SWIFT messages, Cyber-security firm Symantec Corp said on Tuesday. This is a similar approach that granted $81 million in the notorious February attack on Bangladesh’s central bank.

SWIFT is the messaging system that is the hub of the global financial system. Symantec said that a group named Odinaff has infected ten to twenty organizations with malware. These can be utilized to conceal deceitful transfer requests made over the messaging system.

Symantec’s investigation offered fresh insight into ongoing hacking earlier revealed by SWIFT. Gottfried Leibbrandt, SWIFT’s Chief Executive, notified customers last month about three hacks and cautioned that cyber attacks on banks are primed to increase.

Symantec and SWIFT have not named particular victims of Odinaff other than Bangladesh Bank. Most attacks, however, happened in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ukraine, Hong Kong, and the United States, Symantec said.

In May, the company said it believed a group known as Lazarus executed the Bangladesh theft. The group was also accountable for attacks on SWIFT customers in Southeast Asia and the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014.

Lazarus sanctioned by nation state

The United States has accused North Korea for the Sony attack, though Symantec has not confirmed the Koreans were behind Lazarus. Nevertheless, the high level of sophistication of its work indicates connection by a nation state.

On the other hand, Odinaff seems to be a financially motivated criminal group and not a nation state, the company added.

Symantec said it believed that Odinaff is connected to the hacking group Carbanak. The group has been known to target merchant point-of-sale systems and banks since 2014.

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