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Ukraine has reached out to the FBI for help with a suspected Russian hack into Burisma, the company that Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, once worked at. Burisma has become a central part of the impeachment of Donald Trump, due to Trump’s desire for an investigation into the company in an effort to dig up dirt on his political rival.
Update: Ukraine is now also seeking help from the FBI to investigate the surveillance of U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
Following a suspected Russian cyberattack on the company Burisma, Ukraine has reached out to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for help with the matter. Last July, the company was at the center of Trump’s attempts to coax Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy into investigating Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden, the former vice president and a 2020 Presidential election contender.
Hunter Biden once held a seat on Burisma’s board, but there has been no evidence that his position was in any way related to his father’s role as vice president. Trump has maintained that he was simply worried about corruption in Ukraine, but his efforts in the region directly led to his impeachment for abuses of power.
On Monday, a US security agency named Area 1 identified the Burisma hack and were able to identify the group responsible: APT28, also known as Fancy Bear. This is the same group that was responsible for the 2016 DNC email hack that played havoc on the 2016 election. That group is directly connected to the Russian Main Directorate of Military Intelligence, an operation formerly known as the GRU.
Russia has not responded to the claims made by Area 1 yet, though the country has also strongly denied any involvement in the 2016 hack. Their denial flies in the face of notable US intelligence agency reports which indicate beyond a shadow of a doubt that Russia was responsible for the cyberattacks. It stands to reason the country would maintain similar feigned ignorance in this case.
According to Burisma, the cyberattack targeted employee personnel data, executive emails and other sensitive documents. Additionally, many other companies were recently targeted by similar attacks, including the media company of president Zelenskiy, who was notably a comedian before starting his political career.
