USA: Russian intelligence cyber infighting scrutinised at Black Hat 2019

W/S Black Hat 2019 security conference lecture: Infighting Among Russian Security Services in the Cyber Sphere, Las Vegas
SOT, Kimberly Zenz, cyber security expert: "Right now in Russia there is a situation of escalating infighting. Infighting is not unique to Russia. Many countries have inter-agency competition. But it is more pronounced there, also more pronounced there than it was a few years."
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SOT, Kimberly Zenz, cyber security expert: "Within the FSB, there are a lot of divisions, but there is two I am going to talk about today. First is the CZI, the Centre for the Protection of Information and Special Communications, and then they share a lot of - excuse me - share a lot of responsibilities with the CIB, the Centre for Information Securities, and the CIB is here, they're kind of an interesting case because they have been involved in pretty much also every major anti-cyber crime bust in recent years."
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SOT, Kimberly Zenz, cyber security expert: "I guess my favourite example is the Interior Ministry of Division K, the division for the fighting of cyber crime. I think since 2008 the media has reported it's going to join the FSB, still hasn't happened, because NVDs [national vulnerability databases) had a little push back, but there was some conflict. So you can sometimes see in reports of transfer of responsibilities, the GRU was supposed to create a national CRT (Centralised Regional Technical Service). A year later there were reports that the FSB would now be creating the national CRT.
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SCRIPT
Infighting among Russian security services in the cyber sphere was one of the top-billed lectures at the Black Hat 2019 conference in Las Vegas on Thursday.
Kimberly Zenze from the Germany Cyber-Security Organisation delved into how inter-agency competition is particularly pronounced in Russia, with the the FSB and GRU vying for control of information and communication services in Russia.
Launched in 1997, Black Hat attracts thousands of attendees and attempts to tackle some of the more pressing issues in cyber security.
Black Hat 2019 will be immediately followed by the DEF CON hacker convention set to run from August 8 to 11.