A Russian news service is claiming that US attacks on it and an organisation accused of state-sponsored trolling has left storage systems damaged and international servers wiped after multiple malware attacks.
The Russian Federal News Agency (FAN)
alleged earlier this week that US Cyber Command conducted an online attack against the self-described news organization in conjunction with Cyber Command's reported offensive operation against the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Kremlin-linked Russian organization based in St Petersburg that US officials blame for spreading misinformation through social media to sow discord and interfere with elections.
The report lends support to claims that the US military conducted offensive cyber operations in Russia last year to prevent interference with the 2018 midterm elections.
FAN, according to the US government, is a part of
Project Lakhta, the Russian-funded foreign influence operation. The publisher is said to have served as a conduit for concealing Project Lakhta activities and as such is currently subject to
Treasury Department sanctions. The IRA is also said to be part of Project Lakhta. FAN nonetheless maintains it has nothing to do with the IRA and does not interfere with elections or engage in illegal activity.