According to recent reports from many news sources, the Russian are committing cyber attacks internationally, but who are the ones responsible for the attacks directly? 

Six Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie (aka GRU) officers are being charged with seven crimes, including conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The GRU is the main intelligence agency for the Russian military. Unlike the Federal Security Service (FSB), who report directly to the Russian president, the GRU reports to the Minister of Defense in Russia and the Chief of General Staff, who is the highest ranking officer of the Russian armed forces.

The six Russian military officers wanted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) are Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko, Sergey Vladimirovich Detistov, Pavel Valeryevich Frolov, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, Artem Valeryevich Ochichenko and Petr Nikolayevich Pliskin. Andrienko is being charged with having a hand in developing components of the NotPetya, a malware that targets Windows-based systems, and Olympic Destroyer malware. So are Frolov, Pliskin and Detistov. FrolovPavel is accused of having a hand in KillDisk, another malware program.  Detistov, along with Kovalev and Ochichenko, are accused of developing spear phishing techniques and messages targeting the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. Spear phishing is  a way of stealing information through email or other electronic communications.

The thing is, how can they be taken to trial if they are in Russia. Well, they can’t unless the Russian government gives them up because the U.S. doesn’t have an extradition agreement with Russia. So, as of now, the U.S government can’t do anything about them other than apply pressure and negotiate. There is also evidence that Russia isn’t the only country involved; there is also evidence of hacking that points to both Iran and China. China has attacked non-campaign emails of high profile people in Biden’s campaign, while Iran has gone after personal and work accounts of staff and administration officials under the Trump campaign, according to Microsoft reports.