Author: IGIHE

{A top secret National Security Agency document shows that hackers from Russian military intelligence tried repeatedly to break into US voting systems before last year’s presidential election, The Intercept reported.}

The online news outlet said on Monday the NSA report depicted a hacking operation tied closely to Moscow’s GRU intelligence directorate that targeted private US companies providing voter registration services and equipment to local governments around the country.

{{US vote }}

The operation, which potentially threatened the integrity of the US vote, went on for months, until just days before the November 8 election, according to the document.

The NSA did not conclude whether the hackers had any effect on the outcome, The Intercept said. But US intelligence officials have repeatedly said vote tallies were not affected in the election, won in a shock upset by Donald Trump.

The Intercept, which focuses on national security issues, said the NSA document was dated May 5, the most up to date view made public so far by US intelligence services of the Russian effort.

The Intercept did not say how they acquired the document, but shortly after its report appeared, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of Reality Leigh Winner, an employee of a national security contractor, for leaking top secret information to “an online news outlet”.

{{Help Trump}}

While neither the information nor the outlet were identified, the information was also described as a report dated May 5.

Asked about the arrest, Intercept spokeswoman Vivian Siu said the NSA document came to them anonymously. “The Intercept has no knowledge of the identity of the source,” she said.

The report expanded on US allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed a concerted effort, involving hacking and disinformation, to interfere with the election to help Trump.

“Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named US company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions,” the NSA report says, according to The Intercept.

{{Denied }}

“The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting US local government organisations.”

The report was published just days after Putin denied allegations that the Russian state had meddled in the US election.

Putin conceded, however, that there may have been hacking by Russians unconnected with the government.

As for the charges of government involvement, he said: “This useless and harmful chatter needs to stop.”

The NSA did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the report.

{{Unanswered }}

The Intercept said that the agency, Washington’s most important signals intelligence body, sought first to dissuade them from publishing it, and then requested redactions.

The report shows that, by trying to steal log-in credentials and using spear-fishing emails to plant malware, the hackers “obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards.”

How successful that effort was, and what kind of data may have been stolen, remains an unanswered question, the NSA report says.

It also notes that despite then-president Barack Obama’s warning to Putin in September last year to not interfere with the election, the hacking attack on voter systems continued through October.

Source:AFP

{India successfully launched its most powerful home-produced rocket, another milestone for its indigenous space programme which one day hopes to put a human into orbit.}

The 43-metre rocket hurtled into a clear sky at 5:28 pm from the southern island of Sriharikota, one of two sites used by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to launch satellites.

Scientists hugged each other and cheered as the 640-tonne rocket lifted off on Monday.

“The GSLV – MKIII D1/GSAT-19 mission takes India closer to the next generation launch vehicle and satellite capability,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on his Twitter account.

{{Proud nation }}

“The nation is proud!”

The rocket boasts a powerful engine that has been developed in India over many years. Programme managers hope to reduce reliance on European engines that have propelled some of India’s spacecraft in the past.

The GSLV Mk III rocket carried a satellite weighing more than three tonnes into a high orbit above Earth, a landmark achievement as India had struggled to match the heavier payloads of other space giants.

“They just launched the most powerful engine in India. It is a cryogenic engine, which took them 20 years to develop. Some engineers have spent their life working on this,” Mathieu Weiss, a representative in India for France’s space agency CNES, said.

The launch is another feather in the cap for scientists at ISRO, who won Asia’s race to Mars in 2014 when an Indian spacecraft reached the Red Planet on a shoestring budget.

That feat burnished India’s reputation as a reliable low-cost option for space exploration, with its $73 million price tag drastically undercutting NASA’s Maven Mars $671-million mission.

ISRO is also mulling the idea of missions to Jupiter and Venus.

{{Reaching for the stars }}

India is vying for a larger slice of the booming commercial satellite business as phone, internet and other companies seek expanded and more high-end communications.

In February India put a record 104 satellites in orbit from a single rocket, surpassing Russia which launched 39 satellites in one mission in June 2014.

The rocket’s main cargo on that occasion was a 714-kilogram (1,574-pound) satellite for Earth observation but it was also loaded with 103 smaller “nano satellites”, nearly all from other countries.

Although India has successfully launched lighter satellites in recent years, this latest rocket is capable of carrying a massive four-tonne payload into high orbit — twice the capacity of its predecessor, ISRO says.

{{Indian-made }}

The space agency tested a less-developed version of the rocket in December 2014 while the cryogenic engine was still in the testing phase.

It carried an unmanned crew capsule which separated from the rocket and splashed down in the Bay of Bengal off India’s east coast 20 minutes after liftoff.

The Indian-made capsule was designed to carry up to three astronauts but ISRO said it would take at least another seven years to reach the point where a crew could be put into space.

India wants to become the fourth nation — after Russia, the United States and China — to put astronauts into orbit but its manned spaceflight programme has experienced multiple stops and starts.

Source:AFP