> It's based on the re-use of the same exact techniques, including command-and-control server addresses and encryption keys that have been used in many, many other attacks that align extremely closely with Russian interests.
Is there an official source that actually breaks down the similarities to which attacks? I have my doubts about the attribution of the DNC hack to _state_ agents. The only specific I've read was the Gucifer 2.0 windows language being set to Russian.
Every other attribution has been a "trust us, we've seen this before" but I am very skeptical of intelligence and law enforcement agencies unattributed claims and I think they've earned that distrust.
You are correct that the publicly available evidence doesn't point directly to the GRU, but rather merely to an anonymous extremely well-resourced group whose interests align extremely well with Russian military interests. While the GRU is the most reasonable conclusion, this would leave open, for example, the possibility that some contractor to the Russian military is operating with independence, not actually under direct order from the Kremlin.
The intelligence community claims to have knowledge, through conventional intelligence rather than forensics, that this was done by the GRU themselves, under order from the highest levels of leadership. This presumably means they know who the hackers actually are, whom they report to, and the general structure of the agency. They claim they have multiple, strong, independent sources confirming this, but they can't reveal their intelligence publicly without compromising those sources.
Is there an official source that actually breaks down the similarities to which attacks? I have my doubts about the attribution of the DNC hack to _state_ agents. The only specific I've read was the Gucifer 2.0 windows language being set to Russian.
Every other attribution has been a "trust us, we've seen this before" but I am very skeptical of intelligence and law enforcement agencies unattributed claims and I think they've earned that distrust.