Russians Claiming to Represent IS Threatened US Military Wives

 

Angela Ricketts’ husband is in the United States Army.

On February 10, 2015, she received a text message: “Dear Angela!” it read. “Bloody Valentine’s Day!”

“We know everything about you, your husband and your children,” the Facebook message continued.

The writer claimed to represent the Islamic State, or IS militant¹ group. The message said the militants² had gained control of her computer and telephone.

Ricketts was one of five military wives who received death threats from the self-declared CyberCaliphate.

However, they were not from IS.

The Associated Press says it has found evidence that the women were targeted by a Russian group known for attacking computers. It reportedly is the same group that was active during the U.S. presidential election campaign two years ago. The Russian hackers³ released emails from John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential election campaign.

The operation is similar to the online campaign by Russian hackers to spread false information in the months before the 2016 elections.

Links between CyberCaliphate and the Russian hackers, often called “Fancy Bear” or “APT28,” have been documented earlier in both the U.S. and Europe. But this information had not been shared with the women involved. Many of the women believed they had been targeted by Islamic State supporters.

“Never in a million years did I think that it was the Russians,” said Ricketts, a writer and activist⁴ for military families and veterans.

Completely new ground

At the same time that Ricketts received her message, four other women across the country received similar messages.

Liz Snell, wife of a U.S. Marine⁵, was at her husband’s retirement⁶ ceremony in California when she found that the Twitter account of her group, Military Spouses⁸ of Strength, had been attacked. It was broadcasting public threats to herself, the other women and their families. The threats also reached Michelle Obama, when her husband Barack Obama was U.S. president.

The women later found they had all received the same threats. However, they refused to be frightened.

“Fear is exactly what — at the time — we perceived ISIS [IS] wanted from military families,” said Lori Volkman, one of the victims.

Volkman and the other wives decided⁹ to share their stories through different media organizations.

“Military families are prepared to deal with violence that’s directed toward our soldiers,” Ricketts told Fox News. “But having it directed towards us is just completely new ground.”

‘We might be surprised’

On April 9, 2015, almost two months after the wives were threatened, the television signal of French broadcaster TV5 Monde went dead.

The station’s communications equipment had been damaged, and its internal messaging system disabled. On the station’s website and Facebook page was the sign of CyberCaliphate.

The cyberattack shocked France. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said evidence suggested the broadcaster was the victim of an attack of terror.

But Guillaume Poupard, the chief of France’s cybersecurity agency, was not ready to support the minister’s claim.

“We should be very prudent¹⁰ about the origin of the attack,” he told French radio. “We might be surprised.”

Government experts later found evidence the attack did not come from the Middle East, but Moscow.

Speaking to the AP last year, Poupard said the attack “resembles a lot what we call collectively APT28.”

The Russian government has repeatedly denied plotting attacks against Western targets.

Similar goals

A cybersecurity company called Secureworks provided evidence to the AP that the military wives were targeted by Russian hackers. Recent AP research found that a group called Fancy Bear, which Secureworks calls “Iron Twilight,” was trying to break into the military wives’ email at same time that CyberCaliphate sent its messages.

Lee Foster, with cybersecurity company FireEye, said the fact that the Russian hacking¹¹ and CyberCaliphate activities happened at the same time makes it clear the groups were linked.

The CyberCaliphate’s attacks are similar to the activities of a group called the St. Petersburg troll farm. It paid Russian employees to put false information into social media. They tried to raise fears of the IS militants’ threat to the United States by producing false stories of IS attacks.

The AP said it has found no link between CyberCaliphate and the St. Petersburg trolls. However, their goals appeared to be the same: keep tensions high and extremist Islam in the news.

I’m Phil Dierking.

Words in This Story

Valentine - n. a card or gift that you give usually to someone you love on Valentine's Day?

online - adj. connected to a computer, a computer network, or the Internet?

veteran - n. : someone who fought in a war as a soldier, sailor, etc.?

spouse⁷ - n. a husband or wife?

perceive - v. to notice or become aware of something

internal - adj. existing or located on the inside of something?

cybersecurity - n. he state of being protected against the criminal or unauthorized use of electronic data, or the measures taken to achieve this.?

prudent - adj. having or showing careful good judgment¹²?

resemble - v. to look or be like (someone or something)?

troll farm - n. an organization whose workers try to create conflict in an online community

1 militant   

adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士

参考例句：

• Some militant leaders want to merge with white radicals.一些好斗的领导人要和白人中的激进派联合。
• He is a militant in the movement.他在那次运动中是个激进人物。

2 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

3 hackers   

n.计算机迷( hacker的名词复数 )；私自存取或篡改电脑资料者，电脑“黑客”

参考例句：

• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks againoff-again email exchanges. 通过几星期电子邮件往来安排见面，他们最终同意了。 来自互联网

4 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

5 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

6 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

7 spouse   

n.配偶(指夫或妻)

参考例句：

• Her spouse will come to see her on Sunday.她的丈夫星期天要来看她。
• What is the best way to keep your spouse happy in the marriage?在婚姻中保持配偶幸福的最好方法是什么？

8 spouses   

n.配偶，夫或妻( spouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jobs are available for spouses on campus and in the community. 校园里和社区里有配偶可做的工作。 来自辞典例句
• An astonishing number of spouses-most particularly in the upper-income brackets-have no close notion of their husbands'paychecks. 相当大一部分妇女——特别在高收入阶层——并不很了解他们丈夫的薪金。 来自辞典例句

9 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

10 prudent   

adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的

参考例句：

• A prudent traveller never disparages his own country.聪明的旅行者从不贬低自己的国家。
• You must school yourself to be modest and prudent.你要学会谦虚谨慎。

11 hacking   

n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动

参考例句：

• The patient with emphysema is hacking all day. 这个肺气肿病人整天不断地干咳。
• We undertook the task of hacking our way through the jungle. 我们负责在丛林中开路。

12 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。