Turkish Hacking Group Suspected of taking down the website of Austrian Foreign Ministry

Austrian daily Kronen Zeitung reported speculations about the possible involvement of the Turkish "Lion Soldiers" ("Aslan Neferler") hacking group in taking down the website of the Austrian Foreign Ministry for a short time March 6. The homepage was offline for a few minutes.

Authorities responded quickly also to the threat scenario involving Austrian Airlines flights from the United States to Austria.

According to Kronen Zeitung they received an "unspecified threat" for March 4.

After lengthy security checks, the aircraft from Miami and New York could take off only with considerable delays.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Austria's Domestic Intelligence Agency, is investigating in all direction.

The Turkish "Lion Soldiers" hacking group is strongly suspected of being involved.

French Intelligence has no doubt that Russian Spies Will Try to Disrupt Presidential Campaign

The General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), the main French Intelligence Agency, has no doubt that Russian spies are going to try to repeat the Trump election stunt by revealing the data and emails of Presidential candidates.

According to French investigative newspaper Le Canard Enchaine "hackers are bursting with energy in their attempt to disrupt the French presidential campaign".

The leading target of their attacks is the site of candidate Emmanuel Macron. The site had to face with at least 100 intrusion attempts last November, when the former minister announced his candidacy.

Ever since the polls began raising hopes of Macron making it to the second round against Marine Le Pen next May, they again -- and suddenly -- increased. Last January, the site had to deal with 1,922 attacks, 907 of which came from Ukraine.

Sputnik, news websites and radio broadcast service established by the Russian government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya, relayed the threats made by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who claims to have "interesting information" about Macron.

Assange said "the data come from the private correspondence of former American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."

France's Intelligence Agencies are convinced that an influence operation is being prepared.

Spanish National Police Arrests Peter Wakkie, a Businessman linked to Russian Hackers

On 16 January, the National Police arrested Peter Wakkie at Madrid's Barajas-Adolfo Suarez Airport.

According Spanish Daily El Mundo he is a businessmen linked to a Russian millionaire, Mikhail Fridman, whom the US intelligence services accuse of having aided Russian hackers to access the Democrat Party's servers, with the goal of favoring the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump.

According to police sources, Wakkie' arrest took place after 10!00 hours in the morning, at Barajas Airport, taking advantage of the fact that this businessman was planning to take part at a Zed+ investors meeting in Spain's capital.

Zed+ is a Dutch holding, which investors include a number of Spanish business leaders,  El Confidencial reported. According to this report, Zed+ is being investigated for continuously siphoning off funds to opaque corporations, in some cases in the hands of leading members of the Russian administration.

According to preliminary information in the hands of the Spanish Police's Financial and Tax Crime Unit (UDEF), those families include that of Interior Minister Alexander Kolokoltsev.

A number of intelligence services are investigating this corporate structure, which "brain" seems to be Mikhail Fridman. This Russian millionaire of Ukrainian descent appears in the report by a British spy that the US Intelligence Agencies sent to the US Administration and to the President elect last week.

One of the pages in the mentioned confidential report is devoted to Fridman, due to his friendship with Vladimir Putin and for allegedly having helped Russia access the Democrat Party's servers.

German Intelligence Has Findings Russian Attempts To Influence Bundestag Election Through Cyber Attacks

German Intelligence has accurate findings revealing that cyber attacks to influence Bundestag election are being carried out from Russia.

Frankfurter Allgemeine, widespread German daily, reported that Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the Federal Republic of Germany's domestic security agency, whose duties include counter-espionage, has stated that Russian “propaganda and influence-wielding operations” had been carried out by Russian State Agencies.

Russian state agencies are believed to wage cyber attacks under the guise of alleged hacker activists. Since the start of the Ukraine war, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has noted a “substantial increase” in Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns in Germany, and reports that there is a “massive deployment of Russian financial resources.”

According German Intelligence "these attacks took place under a bogus flag" and should be considered an "Advanced Persistent Threat" (APT), a sophisticated and ongoing threat to a complex IT infrastructure

"Russian State Agencies carried out propaganda and influence operations"

Hans-Georg Maassen, President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), stated that “cyber operations posing a possible threat to members of the German government, members of the Bundestag, and the staff of democratic parties are ongoing. The pointers to attempts to influence next year’s Bundestag election are solidifying”.

Hans-Georg Maassen expressed the fear that information stolen in that kind of attacks on computer systems would be used in the election campaign, for the purpose of discrediting politicians.