Tag: Kansas

Federal officials say Russian spies tried to hack into a Kansas nuclear power plant

by Scott Canon, KCUR and Kansas News Service

Four men have been charged with cyberattacks on energy sector facilities around the world — including Wolf Creek nuclear plant in Burlington, Kansas. The unsealing of indictments comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Moscow.

A federal indictment made public Thursday accuses four men with ties to Russian spy outfits of trying to gain control of U.S. nuclear power plants — including one in Kansas — through cyber sabotage.

Prosecutors contend the defendants targeted both software and hardware to cripple critical infrastructure in the U.S., including the Wolf Creek nuclear plant near Burlington, Kansas.

The U.S. Justice Department describes a pair of concerted attacks that involved, among other tactics, planting malware on more than 17,000 devices.

That alleged hacking, the indictment says, had some success that gave saboteurs unauthorized access to networks and computers across the energy sector.

All of the men are Russian nationals accused of working for their Ministry of Defense to wreck parts of the global energy sector between 2012 and 2018. Justice officials say the hacking campaigns sought to infiltrate thousands of computers at hundreds of private companies and government agencies across roughly 135 countries.

“Russian state-sponsored hackers pose a serious and persistent threat to critical infrastructure both in the United States and around the world,” Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said in a news release. “The criminal charges unsealed today … make crystal clear the urgent ongoing need for American businesses to harden their defenses and remain vigilant.”

Although the indictments were unsealed Thursday — amid rising U.S.-Russia tensions — they were first filed in secret in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and Kansas City, Kansas, in 2018.

Prosecutors said in a news release that Wolf Creek and its owners, Evergy and the Kansas Electric Power Cooperative, worked with investigators and “provided invaluable assistance.”

The Justice Department contends Wolf Creek fell target to attack in a second phase of attacks known as “Dragonfly 2.0” focused on specific energy facilities, including engineers at the plant. The indictment says the Russian operatives targeted more than 3,300 people at 500 U.S. and foreign companies and government agencies.

Part of the alleged scheme banked on spearfishing hacks that use email to draw people to seemingly legitimate websites that were actually traps designed to steal passwords, plant malware or otherwise gain ways to bypass cybersecurity defenses.

“When the engineers browsed to a compromised website, the conspirators’ hidden scripts deployed malware designed to capture login credentials onto their computers,” according to the Justice Department.

Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission were also targets of the alleged attacks.

Pavel Aleksandrovich Akulov, Mikhail Mikhailovich Gavrilov, and Marat Valeryevich Tyukov are charged with conspiracy to cause damage to the property of an energy facility and commit computer fraud and abuse, in an indictment in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas. A second indictment from the D.C. court alleged that Russian national Evgeny Viktorovich Gladkikh and unnamed co-conspirators targeted a foreign oil facility and a U.S. energy company between 2017 and 2018.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said in a news release that Moscow was responsible for the attacks.

“We will continue,” he said, “to identify and quickly direct response assets to victims of Russian cyber activity.”

News website Politico cited an unnamed Justice official saying more action on the issue could come from the federal government in coming days. The same source told Politico that the defendants are unlikely to be extradited.

Scott Canon is managing editor of the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. You can reach him on Twitter @ScottCanon or email scott (at) kcur (dot) org.
Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
See more at https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-03-24/federal-officials-say-russian-spies-tried-to-hack-into-a-kansas-nuclear-power-plant.

Moran, Marshall travel to Europe for NATO briefings amid invasion of Ukraine

Kansas’ four U.S. House members vote to deepen sanctions against Russia

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall are part of a bipartisan 10-member entourage of senators traveling to Poland and Germany to gathering information about NATO and the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, the Iowa Republican leading the delegation, scheduled meetings with top military leaders about work of NATO allies and to learn firsthand more about the “heartbreaking humanitarian impact” of Russia President Vladimir Putin’s “war of aggression.”

Republicans Marshall and Moran, who were in Europe on Friday, said a prime directive of the United States’ government was to protect freedom and liberty for people around the world. Kansas is the only state with two senators in this overseas delegation.

“The United States has the capability to provide further resources to Ukrainians through defensive military equipment, food aid and medical supplies to give Ukraine a fighting chance not only to survive but to win,” Moran said.

Moran was recently appointed to the Senate’s NATO Observer Group comprised of six Republicans and six Democrats. The panel was re-established in 2018 to better inform senators outside of national security committees about defense spending commitments of alliance members, the alliance’s counter-terrorism capability, NATO enlargement and the ability of NATO members to address non-conventional warfare.

Marshall said President Joe Biden wasn’t doing enough in terms of economic sanctions against Russia. The Kansas senator said Ukrainian forces should be given broader access to MiG-29 and A-10 fighter aircraft as well as additional drones and anti-aircraft missiles. Marshall also sponsored legislation banning U.S. purchases of Russian uranium.

“I am committed that there will be no American bloodshed in Ukraine,” Marshall said. “This has to be a war that is led be Europe. We will be standing beside and behind, but we don’t want American pilots in the air space or American boots on the ground.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. House voted 424-8 on Thursday to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus. The measure sent to the U.S. Senate would enable Biden to impose higher tariffs on Russian goods.

Biden’s directives to cut off flow of Russian oil, gas, seafood, alcohol and diamonds to the United States has blocked an estimated 60% of Russian imports.

“We must keep in mind that the American marketplace is not something that is a right. It is a privilege for those that uphold international order,” said U.S. Rep. Ron Estes, a Kansas Republican. “Congress must make clear to the world that normal trade relations with the United States must be reserved for honest brokers that adhere to international order.”

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/03/18/moran-marshall-travel-to-europe-for-nato-briefings-amid-invasion-of-ukraine/.

AG-backed bill prohibiting ‘sanctuary cities’ brings heavy opposition to Kansas Statehouse

by Noah Taborda, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Lawmakers are wrangling with legislation backed by Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt to prohibit municipal governments from adopting rules that block cooperation with federal authorities investigating illegal immigrants.

Schmidt initiated the push for a ban on “sanctuary cities” in response to action by the Unified Government of Kansas City, Kansas – Wyandotte County to authorize the issuance of photo identification cards to undocumented people to improve access to public services. The Safe and Welcoming City Act was structured so the ID information wouldn’t be shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Opponents of the legislation outnumbered supporters 64-7 during a hearing Tuesday in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee.

Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, lead coordinator for the New Frontiers Project, a group in southwest Kansas working to empower people of color, described his family history with immigration and the importance of having communities where immigrants can feel safe.

Rangel-Lopez said that while proponents may claim the bill does not target legal immigrants, many with mixed-status families would suffer.

“It should be clear to you now that this is not a game. The choices you make as a legislator have very real impacts on the lives of people like me and my family,” Rangel-Lopez said. “Listen to us when we tell you this will have insidious effects on crime reporting in immigrant communities. Listen to us when we tell you that your decisions don’t exist in a vacuum.”

Under House Bill 2717, local units of government would be unable to adopt any “ordinance, resolution, rule or policy” that would interfere with law enforcement cooperation in immigration enforcement actions. In Wyandotte County, law enforcement officials said they hadn’t joined ICE agents on immigration raids for years.

As of 2021, 12 states have enacted state-level laws prohibiting or restricting sanctuary jurisdictions. The Kansas Legislature has considered legislation to prohibit sanctuary cities across the state on several occasions, but none has passed.

Schmidt, a Republican candidate for governor, said Kansas required such a law to ensure the entire state can be safe and welcoming to immigrants.

“That worthy goal cannot be properly accomplished through a patchwork process of local jurisdictions deciding to prohibit their local law enforcement agencies from cooperating or even communicating with federal authorities, nor can that be accomplished by issuing to non-citizens new local-government identification cards that lack basic anti-fraud and anti-abuse safeguards built into state law,” Schmidt said.

The measure also would forbid municipal governments from issuing ID cards to people not lawfully residing in the United States that were designed to satisfy identification requirements set in state law. Any of these cards would read “Not valid for state ID.”

Violating the proposed statute would be considered ID fraud under state criminal law.

While the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office supported the bill, a representative of the office urged legislators to address a potential conflict between state laws on the use of ID cards that could result in voter confusion and litigation.

“It is the firm position of the Kansas Secretary of State that only United States citizens may vote in an election,” said Clay Barker, deputy assistant secretary of state. “Requiring voter identification to cast a ballot ensures the protection of voters’ rights and the integrity of the electoral process.”

Opponents of the bill said it was late in session to be passing such significant legislation.

Aileen Berquist, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said proponents were narrow sighted in their approach as the bill would not only instill fear but undermine local authority to make the best decisions for their communities. She said it would also force an unfunded mandate on municipal governments by forcing them to engage in potentially unconstitutional immigration enforcement activities.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers are not arrest warrants, Berquist said, but instead are notifications to local law enforcement that ICE intends to assume custody of an individual.

“Courts have repeatedly found that ICE detainers deny due process and do not comply with the fundamental protections required by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Berquist said. “Multiple courts have held that the Fourth Amendment does not permit state or local officers — who generally lack civil immigration enforcement authority — to imprison people based on ICE detainers alone. But that is precisely what (the bill) demands that cities and counties do.”

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/03/15/ag-backed-bill-prohibiting-sanctuary-cities-brings-heavy-opposition-to-kansas-statehouse/.