Here is more from CNN:
The second campaign, according to the cable, began in April and involves a “Russia-linked cyber actor” who “conducted a spear phishing campaign targeting personal Gmail accounts associated with think tank scholars, Eastern Europe-based activists and dissidents, journalists, and former officials.”
The cyber actor “posed as a fictitious Department official, inviting targeted users to a meeting and attempting to convince them to link a third-party application to their Gmail accounts” that “would almost certainly grant the actor persistent access to the contents of the users’ Gmail.”
The campaign was highly detailed and the actor “demonstrated extensive knowledge of the Department’s naming conventions and internal documentation,” the cable said.
That hacking activity matches what researchers from Google and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab documented last month: a stealthy effort to pose as US diplomats and infiltrate the digital lives of prominent academics and critics of Russia.
No specific think tanks or think tankers were named in the article. But Cyberscoop reported that think tanker Keir Giles, a Russian military expert with the Chatham House, was targeted by Russia.
