As the U.S. expels 35 Russian diplomats over hacking charges, critics say the so-called evidence released Thursday alongside President Barack Obama’s sanctions is an insufficient response to calls for hard proof of the allegations.
The FBI/Department of Homeland Security Joint Analysis Report “Grizzly Steppe” (pdf), published as part of the White House’s response to alleged Russian government interference in the 2016 election process, “adds nothing to the call for evidence that the Russian government was responsible for hacking the [Democratic National Committee, or DNC], the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], the email accounts of Democratic party officials, or for delivering the content of those hacks to WikiLeaks,” wrote cybersecurity expert Jeffrey Carr on Friday.
The brief report “merely listed every threat group ever reported on by a commercial cybersecurity company that is suspected of being Russian-made and lumped them under the heading of Russian Intelligence Services (RIS) without providing any supporting evidence that such a connection exists,” Carr said.
He continued:
In fact, cyber-expert Robert M. Lee, in his posted critique on Friday, noted that the FBI/DHS report “is intended to help network defenders; it is not the technical evidence of attribution.”
As such, Lee argued, it is likely to “confuse readers” who are seeking such evidence.
Meanwhile, Intercept journalist Sam Biddle, who recently published a take-down of the public evidence that had been put forth as of mid-December, added his voice to calls for more in the way of hard evidence:
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