Press Release
Russian SVR was behind the SolarWinds attack, according to the US authorities.
The network of numerous U.S. agencies and commercial computer organisations was breached by hackers thanks to the SolarWinds supply-chain attack, which the U.S. government has officially blamed on Russia.
The White House names the Cozy Bear group of skilled hackers as the perpetrators of the cyber espionage operation using the SolarWinds Orion platform in a statement announcing sanctions against Russia for actions against U.S. interests.
Clearly stated attribution
The White House press release reaffirms earlier media allegations citing unofficial sources that the SolarWinds attack was carried out by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR.
The Cyber Unified Coordination Group (UCG) gave an unnamed Russian-backed cyber group credit for the attack at the beginning of January.
Today, the SVR is officially held responsible by the White House for running “the broad-scope cyber espionage campaign” through its hacking unit, also known as APT29, The Dukes, or Cozy Bear.
According to the White House brief, “the U.S. Intelligence Community has high confidence in its judgement of attribution to the SVR.”
The SolarWinds Vulnerability Reactor (SVR) gained access to more than 16,000 machines worldwide by hacking into the software company’s supply chain. However, the campaign exclusively targeted a small number of targets, including state and federal institutions in the United States and businesses in the cybersecurity industry (FireEye, Malwarebytes, Mimecast). The National Security Agency (NSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States have issued a joint cybersecurity advisory warning about the top five vulnerabilities the SVR is utilising in attacks against American interests.
Organizations should heed the warning and take the appropriate precautions to spot and guard against the SVR’s nefarious behaviour.
Russian businesses are sanctioned
Today, President Biden signed an executive order prohibiting the use of property in connection with damaging actions taken by the Russian Federation’s government.
The Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on the following Russian technology firms for assisting the SVR, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) in carrying out malicious cyber activities against the United States using the Executive Order issued today by President Biden.
A research facility and technology park funded and run by the Russian Ministry of Defense is called ERA Technopolis. The Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia (GRU) is housed and supported in ERA Technopolis, which also makes use of the personnel and knowledge of the Russian technology industry to develop military and dual-use technologies.
A business called Pasit, with its headquarters in Russia, carried out research and development in support of the hostile cyberoperations of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
SVA is a Russian state-owned research facility with a focus on cutting-edge information security solutions. In order to facilitate the SVR’s nefarious cyber operations, SVA carried out research and development.
Neobit is an IT security company with offices in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and its clientele include the Russian Ministry of Defense, SVR, and the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB). Neobit provided research and development in support of the FSB, GRU, and SVR’s cyber activities. Neobit was also designated today for providing material support to the GRU in violation of E.O. 13694, as modified by E.O. 13757, E.O. 13382, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
Russian Ministry of Defense, SVR, and FSB are a few of the clients of the IT security company AST. The FSB, GRU, and SVR’s cyber operations received technical assistance from AST. In accordance with E.O. 13694, E.O. 13382, and CAATSA, AST was also assigned today to support the FSB.
Positive Technologies is a Russian IT security company that works with clients in the Russian Government, such as the FSB. Positive Technologies holds sizable conventions that are utilised as FSB and GRU recruiting opportunities in addition to offering computer network security solutions to Russian businesses, foreign governments, and worldwide corporations. In accordance with E.O. 13694, E.O. 13382, and CAATSA, Positive Technologies was also designated today to help the FSB.
Without first requesting and receiving a licence from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, US firms and financial institutions are no longer permitted to conduct business with the aforementioned companies (OFAC).
Press Release
Russian processor manufacturers are prohibited from using ARM because of UK sanctions.
On Wednesday, the UK government expanded its list of sanctioned Russian organisations by 63. The two most significant chip manufacturers in Russia, Baikal Electronics and MCST (Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies), are among them.
Since the licensee, Arm Ltd., is situated in Cambridge, England, and must abide by the penalties, the two sanctioned firms will now be denied access to the ARM architecture.
contacting inactive entities
The UK government provided the following justification for the restrictive measures put in place against Baikal and MCST:
The clause’s goal is to persuade Russia to stop acting in a way that threatens Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, or independence or that destabilises Ukraine.
The two companies are important to Russia’s ambitions to achieve technical independence since they are anticipated to step up and fill the gaps left by the absence of processors built by Western chip manufacturers like Intel and AMD.
The two currently available most cutting-edge processors are:
Eight ARM Cortex A57 cores running at 1.5 GHz and an ARM Mali-T628 GPU running at 750 MHz make up the 35 Watt Baikal BE-M1000 (28nm) processor.
MCST Elbrus-16S (28nm), a 16-core processor clocked at 2.0 GHz, is capable of 1.5 TFLOP calculations, which is a tenth of what an Xbox Series X can do. Baikal BE-S1000 (16nm), a 120 Watt processor featuring 48 ARM cores clocked at 2.0 GHz, MCST Elbrus-8C (28nm), a 70 Watt processor featuring eight cores clocked at 1.3 GHz,
Russian businesses and organisations that evaluated these chips in demanding applications claim that they fall short of industry standards and are even unacceptably priced.
Although the performance of these processors and the far poorer mid-tier and low-tier chips with the Baikal and MCST stickers is not very spectacular, they could keep some crucial components of the Russian IT sector operating amid shortages.
In reality, MCST recently bragged that it was “rushing to the rescue” of vital Russian enterprises and organisations, successfully filling the void left in the domestic market.
sanctions’ effects
Given that Russia has previously demonstrated its willingness to relax licencing requirements in order to mitigate the consequences of Western-imposed limitations, it is simple to discount the application and impact of the UK’s sanctions.
It is crucial to keep in mind that the Baikal and MCST processors are produced in foreign foundries, such as those owned by Samsung and TSMC, and that neither of them would violate Arm’s licencing policies or international law to serve Russian objectives.
The only option is to bring the production home and break the law as Baikal, which has a legitimate licence to produce at 16nm, only has a design licence for its next products.
The fact that chip fabrication in Russia can only now be done at the 90nm node level presents yet another significant issue. That was the same technology NVIDIA employed in 2006 for its GeForce 7000-series GPUs.
To combat this in April 2022, the Russian government has already approved an investment of 3.19 trillion rubles (38.2 billion USD), although increasing domestic production will take many years. In the best-case scenarios, 28nm circuits will be able to be produced by Russian foundries by 2030.
Press Release
PE firm Insight Allies spends $290M for a bulk risk in CivicPlus, which provides software and also various other innovation to greater than 4,000 municipal governments (AJ Dome/Manhattan Mercury).
PE firm Insight Partners invests $290M for a majority stake in CivicPlus, which provides software and other technology to more than 4,000 municipal governments (AJ Dome/Manhattan Mercury)
AJ Dome / Manhattan Mercury:
PE firm Insight Partners invests $290M for a majority stake in CivicPlus, which provides software and other technology to more than 4,000 municipal governments — A Manhattan software business owner says a multimillion-dollar investment into the company will not change the company’s makeup.
Press Release
EXAMINING THE LINKS BETWEEN THE RATIONALIST COMMUNITY, WITH SLATE STAR CODEX BLOG AS ITS EPICENTER, AND INFLUENTIAL LEADERS IN TECH, INCLUDING OPENAI’S FOUNDERS (CADE METZ/NEW YORK TIMES)
Examining the links between the Rationalist community, with Slate Star Codex blog as its epicenter, and influential leaders in tech, including OpenAI’s founders — Slate Star Codex was a window into the psyche of many tech leaders building our collective future. Then it disappeared.
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