The Idaho National Laboratory (INL), a government nuclear lab, confirmed that it fell victim to a data breach last Tuesday. The group SiegedSec, self-proclaimed "gay furry hackers," took responsibility for the attack and claimed they accessed sensitive employee data like social security numbers, home addresses, and more. The furries then revealed their demands.
"We're willing to make a deal with INL. If they research creating irl catgirls we will take down this post," SiegedSec wrote in a post announcing the leak on Monday. In certain Japanese anime and manga, a character known as a “catgirl” is a human girl who has cat ears, tails, or other features. “In real life” is what “IRL” refers to.
Yes, these hackers want human/cat hybrids, and they want them now.
All this sounds and is ridiculous. So, somebody at SiegedSec has a sense of humor, albeit one that is bizarre, twisted, and suggestive of some very strange sexual fantasies.
So, who are the boys and girls at SeigedSec really?
Interestingly, enough, the group first appeared only days in advance of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since then, while they have pursued a number of targets connected to an alleged transgender ideology, they have focused many of their actions on targets connected to NATO.
These attacks have been characterized by a marked lack of interest in demanding ransom or other concessions. SiegedSec has, for instance, on several occasions hacked NATO targets and then published classified information on the net. Their motive appears to be to harm NATO rather than to obtain any actual real-world concessions.
For example, on July 24th of this year, the group announced they were able to compromise NATO’s COI portal and obtain hundreds of documents. They then pumped those documents out to the world without making any effort to obtain any immediate concrete benefit from them. The data compromised came from 31 NATO member countries.
While SiegedSec has attacked targets in many countries, almost a third of its targets are located inside the United States. Following the July attack on NATO, SiegedSec staged another attack on NATO data systems in October. While professing to be an independent organization, SiegedSec has specifically justified its attacks on NATO as a response to “human rights abuses” by NATO.
Critical information shared publicly by SeigedSec involved subjects such as drone threats, hypersonic weapons, and experiments related to radioactive waste.
Russia long ago perfected the art of incorporating cyber attacks into its military operations. During the war with Ukraine, it appears to have continued to develop these operations and add layers of deniability. SiegedSec is only one of several groups that have emerged and to varying degrees attempted to cast themselves as independent actors. One of the most prolific of such groups calls itself Killnet. That group has targeted healthcare institutions in the West and the websites of the American and Western European governments. It has also hacked U.S. airports.
Killnet uses relatively simple denial-of-service attacks against its targets, which flood websites with junk traffic to make them unreachable. While these attacks may not inflict significant damage to the infrastructure, they can disrupt websites and operations for hours or even days.
Killnet and SiegedSec are just two of a constellation of Russian “hacktivist” groups employed by the Kremlin as part of the doctrine of hybrid warfare. Not only are these groups employed in concert with Russian military forces in attacks on neighboring countries, but they are also used to wage war on political opponents while avoiding crossing the threshold to open combat. In the case of the war in Ukraine, the use of “hacktivist” groups allows the Russians to strike back against the United States and NATO while maintaining a certain measure of distance and deniability.
Despite the focus on plausible deniability the dovetailing of these “hacktivist” groups with Russian strategic objectives is clear. Earlier this year as Putin was threatening to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory yet another Russian hacking group, this one calling itself Cold River, targeted three nuclear research laboratories in the United States. Between August and September, Cold River targeted the Brookhaven (BNL), Argonne (ANL), and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL) creating fake login pages for each institution and emailing nuclear scientists in an attempt to make them reveal their passwords.
Cold River has been active since at least 2016. It operates out of the Russian city of Syktyvkar. It has attacked a wide range of targets including MI6 the British intelligence service. "This is one of the most important hacking groups you’ve never heard of," said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at U.S. Cybersecurity in speaking with CrowdStrike. "They are involved in directly supporting Kremlin information operations."
Yes, a bunch of very strange individuals hacked an American nuclear lab and demanded the creation of “catgirls.” Presumably, somebody somewhere thought that was amusing. It was not. These gay furry hybrids work for Russia, and they are very serious about making us pay a price for our support of Ukraine.
Most of this information is above my head. I detest my 'smart' phone though am captive to it's convenience, have unplugged my television and substacks is as close to 'social media' as I get. How much more dangerous will all this become as A I is given free rein?
I do understand from reading the greatest history and futurist book ever written that these things will and must happen to empower the final anti-Christ. Come soon Lord Jesus.
"Yes, a bunch of very strange individuals hacked an American nuclear lab and demanded the creation of “catgirls."
Your hacking community eccentrics might think this is funny (it kinda is). but, more importantly, your INL scientist is now thoroughly gaslighted. Subtle degradation of performance and integrity due to fear of enemy listening posts.
not only does the scientist get the impression that his government and organization are incompetent to protect him and his sensitive data but he is now open to blackmail and exploitation. he can readily be accused of leaking sensitive information (or to a limited extent use such a breach as a cover for doing so. attribution will also be increasingly difficult since its highly likely nuclear scientists freely share sensitive information between labs).