The United States on Friday pointed the finger at Russia for a series of “malicious” cyber attacks against European countries, including Germany and the Czech Republic.
“The United States strongly condemns the malicious cyber activities of the Russian General Staff’s General Intelligence Directorate (GRU), also known as APT28, against Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. .
Earlier on Friday, German officials announced that APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, a group linked to Russia’s military intelligence service GRU, carried out a cyber attack against members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) last year.
A little later, Germany announced that it had summoned Russia’s interim trustee over this incident.
For its part, the Russian embassy in Germany denied Berlin’s accusations that Moscow was involved in last year’s cyber attack.
The embassy said in a statement that its envoy “categorically rejected allegations that Russian state structures were involved in this incident […] as unfounded and unproven”.
At the time, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that Prague had also repeatedly become the target of cyber attacks organized by APT28.
The European Union has condemned a “malicious cyber campaign” against Germany and the Czech Republic blamed on Russia and warned it would use a full range of measures in response.
