Young Russian denies she aided election hackers: ‘I never work with douchebags’

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Young Russian denies she aided election hackers: ‘I never work with douchebags’

 
White House claims Alisa Shevchenko was involved in hacking the US election but in an interview she says authorities misinterpreted facts or were fooled

Shaun Walker in Moscow and Sam Thielman in New York

Friday 6 January 2017 12.40 EST  Last modified on Friday 6 January 2017 17.10 EST 

Alisa Shevchenko is a talented young Russian hacker, known for working with companies to find vulnerabilities in their systems. She spends her winters in Asia, meditating and training in Thai kickboxing.
 
She is also, the White House claims, guilty of helping Vladimir Putin interfere in the US election.

Her company was a surprise inclusion on the US sanctions list released last week, alongside top officers in Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency and two well-known criminal hackers. The company “provided the GRU with technical research and development”, according to the fact sheet released by the White House. No further details were given.

In addition to the sanctions, the US expelled 35 Russian diplomats from the country, and said it would take further, non-public measures in response.

After a week in which Russian interference in the election – apparently with the goal of helping Donald Trump to victory – has dominated the news agenda, Shevchenko has spoken out to decry the sanctions against her.

Shevchenko told the Guardian she was furious at her company’s inclusion on the list, and denied ever having knowingly worked for the Russian government. She communicated via encrypted email, from a location she said was “a wild countryside area a few hours away from Bangkok”.

In answers that were defiant, and occasionally abrasive, she decried the “insane level of hysteria around the entire ‘Russian hacking’ story”.

She suggested that the US authorities were guilty either of “a technically incompetent misinterpretation of the facts” or had been fooled by a “counterfeit in order to frame my company”. Those who could have had an interest in framing her could include competitors, US intelligence or Russian intelligence, with the goal of screening the real culprits, Shevchenko said.

“A young female hacker and her helpless company seems like a perfect pick for that goal. I don’t try to hide, I travel a lot, and am a friendly communicative person. And most importantly, I don’t have any big money, power or connections behind me to shrug off the blame. So really, it could be anyone.”

US intelligence believes the Democratic party’s servers were hacked by a group known alternatively as Fancy Bear, APT 29 or Sofacy, which they say was working for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence. In the private sector, attribution directly to the GRU comes most clearly from US firm CrowdStrike, which is influential in US security circles. The US government believes the hacked emails were then leaked – possibly through an intermediary – to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

Putin has denied all Russian interference in the election, suggesting the blame has fallen on Moscow due to sour grapes from the losing side. Putin has expressed hope that under Trump, who has repeatedly praised Russia and the president personally, relations between the two countries will improve.

Russian authorities are known to offer a mixture of carrot and stick to engage prominent hackers in work for the state, and third-party contracting of state information security tasks is common in most countries. A number of Russian security experts declined to comment, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

“Pretty much everyone in the community has done some work for their government at some point,” said Dave Aitel, who runs Immunity, a US software security company. He described Shevchenko as “extremely well known in the information security community”.

Shevchenko described herself as “a typical introverted computer geek” who is largely self taught. She declined to say how old she was, deeming it an “impolite question”, saying instead: “If you really need a number then go ahead and make it up based on my photographs”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/06/russian-hacker-putin-election-alisa-shevchenko?CMP=share_btn_tw

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Shevchenko described herself as “a typical introverted computer geek” who is largely self taught. She declined to say how old she was, deeming it an “impolite question”, saying instead: “If you really need a number then go ahead and make it up based on my photographs”.

[Wingnut]

Good looking young man I hope he turns his life around for good