It's Not Over Til the Fat Lady Sings

An influential British think tank and Ukraine’s military are disputing a report that the U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has used to buttress its claims of Russian hacking in the presidential election.

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The challenges to CrowdStrike’s credibility are significant because the firm was the first to link last year’s hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors, and because CrowdStrike co-founder Dimiti Alperovitch has trumpeted its Ukraine report as more evidence of Russian election tampering.

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The CrowdStrike report, released in December, asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine’s war with Russian-backed separatists.

But the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told VOA that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed any connection to the CrowdStrike report. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses and hacking never happened.

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IISS, based in London, publishes a highly regarded, annual reference called “The Military Balance” that estimates the strength of world armed forces.

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VOA first contacted IISS in February to verify the alleged artillery losses. Officials there initially were unaware of the CrowdStrike assertions. After investigating, they determined that CrowdStrike misinterpreted their data and hadn’t reached out beforehand for comment or clarification.

In a statement to VOA, the institute flatly rejected the assertion of artillery combat losses.

[...]

VOA first contacted IISS in February to verify the alleged artillery losses. Officials there initially were unaware of the CrowdStrike assertions. After investigating, they determined that CrowdStrike misinterpreted their data and hadn’t reached out beforehand for comment or clarification.

In a statement to VOA, the institute flatly rejected the assertion of artillery combat losses.

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“The vast majority of the reduction actually occurs ... before Crimea/Donbass,” she added, referring to the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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In a January post on LinkedIn, [Jeffrey Carr, a cyberwarfare consultant who has lectured at the U.S. Army War College, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other government agencies] called CrowdStrike’s evidence in the Ukraine “flimsy.” He told VOA in an interview that CrowdStrike mistakenly assumed that the X-Agent malware employed in the hacks was a reliable fingerprint for Russian actors. “We now know that’s false,” he said, “and that the source code has been obtained by others outside of Russia."

  VOA

I can see how the Ukrainian military would be reluctant to admit it if they'd been hacked or lost over 50% of their weapons as the report stated, but with the IISS disputing the information, I have to still be extremely skeptical of CrowdStrike's dependability. It seems everyone has decided to take it as gospel that the Russian government hacked the DNC.  Certainly, they've accepted that as fact in the hearings and American press. I don't think that was ever proven.  I'm not saying it didn't happen.  I'm not praising the Russian government. I'm saying I don't believe the claim has been proven, and beyond that, the evidence still looks "flimsy".

Interestingly, this is an article in Voice of America, which is funded by the US government. Also, interestingly, there's an awful lot of RT bashing going on right now because of its funding by the Russian government, but those same people don't seem bothered by VOA. And, likewise, interesting is the fact that CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 by Dmitri Alperovitch, a Russian expatriate and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council policy research center in Washington, whose role is claimed by Global Research to be that of "securing the 21st century for NATO." (Previous concerns about CrowdStrike's report is in this YWA post and this Intercept article.)

CrowdStrike declined to answer VOA’s written questions about the Ukraine report, and Alperovitch canceled a March 15 interview on the topic.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  CrowdStrike has revised its report.