There are “sturdy indications” Russian President Vladimir Putin individually permitted the selection to provide the missile program made use of to shoot down Malaysia Airways flight MH17 above Ukraine, an worldwide team has mentioned.

Even so, evidence of Mr Putin’s and other Russian officials’ involvement in the capturing down of MH17 was not concrete ample to guide to a felony conviction, and the probe will finish without the need of additional prosecutions, a press convention at The Hague heard.

Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer reported: “The investigation has now arrived at its restrict. The findings are inadequate for the prosecution of new suspects.”

When Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte added it was a “bitter disappointment” that the investigation had finished devoid of further more prosecutions.

“We will continue to connect with the Russian Federation to account for its purpose in this tragedy,” Mr Rutte said.

Guilty may well hardly ever deal with justice

The fate of the investigation was introduced three months just after a Dutch court convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian rebel for their roles in shooting down the Boeing 777 on 17 July 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew. Just one Russian was acquitted.

None of the suspects appeared for the demo and it is unclear if the three who were being observed responsible of numerous murders in their absence will ever provide their sentences.

Russia has normally denied involvement in the tragedy. It released a entire-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the court of bowing to stress from Dutch politicians, prosecutors and the media.

But the convictions, blended with the court’s discovering that the surface area-to-air Buk missile which brought down the Amsterdam-to-Kuala Lumpur flight arrived from a Russian armed service foundation, had been found as crystal clear indicators Moscow had a job.

In November prosecutors argued Moscow was in all round management of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, the separatist location of japanese Ukraine where by the missile was launched from, at the time of the disaster in 2014.

Hague hears phone calls indicating Putin’s most likely involvement

Proof cited at The Hague on Wednesday presented the closest back links so considerably amongst Mr Putin himself and the weapons accountable for downing MH17.

Intercepted cellphone calls among leaders of the breakaway area and “large-position Russian federal government officers held in the summer time of 2014” have been explained by prosecutors.

The intercepts advised Mr Putin experienced to approve the supply of weapons to separatists.

Prosecutors also played a 2017 dialogue involving Mr Putin himself and the Russian-appointed main administrator of Ukraine’s Luhansk province, in which the two discussed the army predicament.

“The indications for close ties in between the leadership of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Russian federal government officials raises concerns about their involvement in the deployment of the missile,” the Netherlands Public Prosecution Company mentioned on its web site.

The Buk missile method came from the Russian military’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade in the city of Kursk, investigators found.

But they could not trace the precise soldiers who fired the weapon at flight MH17.

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Three professional-Russian troops convicted of murder about deaths
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2:07

MH17 victims’ family members talk just after verdict

As perfectly as the prison trial held in the Netherlands, the Dutch and Ukrainian governments are suing Russia at the European Court docket of Human Legal rights over its alleged position in the downing of the passenger aircraft.

Piet Ploeg, who heads a foundation symbolizing victims, explained he was dissatisfied the investigation experienced ended, but was happy prosecutors experienced laid out their evidence of Mr Putin’s involvement.

He explained: “We won’t be able to do a whole lot with it, Putin are not able to be prosecuted.

“We wanted to know who was ultimately responsible and that is crystal clear.”

Mr Ploeg’s brother, his brother’s spouse and his nephew died on MH17.

Source connection

The post MH17: ‘Strong’ signs Vladimir Putin to blame for supplying missile that shot down passenger plane | World News appeared first on Ukraine Intelligence.

A Russia-linked threat actor has been observed deploying a new information stealer dubbed Graphiron in attacks against Ukraine.

Researchers from Broadcom Symantec spotted a Russia-linked ATP group, tracked as Nodaria (aka UAC-0056), deploying new info-stealing malware, dubbed Graphiron, in attacks against Ukraine.

The Nodaria APT group has been active since at least March 2021, it focuses on Ukraine, despite it has been involved in attacks on targets in Kyrgyzstan and Georgia.

The Graphiron malware allows operators to harvest a wide range of information from the infected systems, including system info, credentials, screenshots, and files.

The malicious code is written in Go programming language, it was first observed in October 2022 and was involved in attacks since at least mid-January 2023.

Graphiron comprises two-stage components: a downloader (Downloader.Graphiron) and a payload (Infostealer.Graphiron).

The downloader contains hardcoded C2 server addresses. Upon execution, the downloader will check against a blacklist of malware analysis tools by checking for running processes’ specific names (i.e. BurpSuite, WinDump, dumpcap, etc). If none of the blacklisted processes are found, it will connect to a C&C server and download and decrypt the payload before adding it to autorun.

The experts pointed out that the downloader runs just once, if it fails will be no more executed.

“Graphiron uses AES encryption with hardcoded keys. It creates temporary files with the “.lock” and “.trash” extensions. It uses hardcoded file names designed to masquerade as Microsoft office executables: OfficeTemplate.exe and MicrosoftOfficeDashboard.exe” reads the analysis published by Symantec.

“The payload is capable of carrying out the following tasks:

• Reads MachineGuid
• Obtains the IP address from https://checkip.amazonaws.com
• Retrieves the hostname, system info, and user info
• Steals data from Firefox and Thunderbird
• Steals private keys from MobaXTerm.
• Steals SSH known hosts
• Steals data from PuTTY
• Steals stored passwords
• Takes screenshots
• Creates a directory
• Lists a directory
• Runs a shell command
• Steals an arbitrary file

The malicious code uses a PowerShell command to steal passwords on the infected system.

The researchers highlighted similarities between Graphiron and older tools in the Nodaria’s arsenal, such as GraphSteel and GrimPlant.

The cyberespionage group Nodaria was linked to the WhisperGate wiper attacks against Ukrainian government computers and websites in January 2022.

The attack chain used by the APT group usually starts with spear-phishing messages, which are then used to deliver a malicious payload to victims. The list of custom tools used by the group includes:

• Elephant Dropper: A dropper
• Elephant Downloader: A downloader
• SaintBot: A downloader
• OutSteel: Information stealer
• GrimPlant (aka Elephant Implant): Collects system information and maintains persistence
• GraphSteel (aka Elephant Client): Information stealer

“While Nodaria was relatively unknown prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the group’s high-level activity over the past year suggests that it is now one of the key players in Russia’s ongoing cyber campaigns against Ukraine.” Symantec concludes.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Graphiron)

The post New Graphiron info-stealer used in attacks against Ukraine appeared first on Security Affairs.

Even as Donald Trump finds himself on the verge of criminal indictment in three jurisdictions, he’s still trying to convince everyone (or at least convince himself) that he’s somehow going to be a presidential contender in 2024. To that end, he keeps periodically sniping at his fellow 2024 Republican hopeful Ron DeSantis. Now Trump is taking that to a shocking new level.

Trump shared another user’s post on his own failed social network which allegedly shows DeSantis getting drunk with underage students back when he was a school teacher. The post also accused DeSantis of looking “ephebophiliaesque” – which essentially another word for pedophilia.

In other words, Trump is now doing what so many right wing loons do these days to anyone they don’t like: Trump is accusing DeSantis of being a pedophile. Trump is offering nothing to back up his accusation, and he’s going to have to provide some actual evidence if he wants this to be considered credible. But the point is that large chunks of Trump’s base will presume this accusation to be true, just as they automatically believe every word that comes out of Trump’s mouth.

Donald Trump is (knowingly) setting up a situation where, if Ron DeSantis is the 2024 Republican nominee for President, a number of Republican voters are going to spend the whole time calling him a pedophile instead of supporting him. In other words, Trump is trying to take DeSantis down with him. If Trump can’t be the 2024 Republican nominee – and he won’t be – he wants to screw it up for anyone else the Republican Party might pick instead.

The post Donald Trump accuses Ron DeSantis of heinous crimes as he attempts to take DeSantis down with him appeared first on Palmer Report.

North Korea held a widely anticipated nighttime military parade on Wednesday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, an event expected to showcase the country’s latest weapons to mark the founding anniversary of its army.

Commercial satellite imagery has for months shown North Korean troops practicing for a major parade, according to international analysts.

Pyongyang’s state media had not reported on the parade as of Wednesday night, though outlets described a number of other commemorative events marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army.

North Korea’s past four military parades occurred after dark, and state media did not report on the events until the next day. It was not immediately known if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over Wednesday’s parade.

Such parades are typically held in downtown Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square and often used to show off new weapons, including ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads.

Kim called on Tuesday for strengthening the military as he paid tribute to soldiers and met with troops to commemorate the anniversary, the North’s state media reported on Wednesday.

“For the strengthening and development of our armed forces, let us all double our efforts and do more for the prosperous development of the socialist motherland,” he said during a speech at a banquet, accompanied by his wife and daughter, according to state news agency KCNA.

He spoke a day after pledging to expand military drills and beef up the nuclear-armed country’s war readiness posture.

In a separate report, KCNA cited Kim’s leadership of large-scale military drills last year, including the flights of hundreds of fighter aircraft, as “inflicting a strong blow on the largest joint air exercise ever conducted by the United States and its agents” in November.

Despite United Nations Security Council resolutions and sanctions, North Korea has forged ahead with banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development.

Last year North Korea test-fired its largest ever intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), amid a record year of launches, and officials in Seoul and Washington say Pyongyang has made preparations to resume nuclear weapons testing for the first time since 2017.

South Korea and the United States have stepped up their own military drills to counter the North, drawing condemnation from Pyongyang.

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U.S. stock indexes looked set to open lower on Wednesday as investors worried the Federal Reserve would keep hiking interest rates this year, while Microsoft rose after laying out its AI push.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Tuesday he expects “significant declines in inflation” in 2023, but acknowledged that the battle against inflation will take quite a bit of time and that interest rates may need to move higher than expected.

Money market participants are now betting the U.S. central bank’s benchmark rate to rise above 5% in May before peaking to 5.14% by July, levels that officials have backed vociferously.

“I could understand the market being weak… with the Fed funds futures implying more rates moving forward than they were before last Friday and before yesterday’s speech,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital Llc.

Powell’s comments came after a strong jobs report on Friday that stymied expectations of rate cuts any time this year and could test the solid start to 2023 for U.S. equities following last year’s battering.

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) climbed 0.9% in premarket trading after the tech giant said it was revamping its Bing search engine and Edge Web browser with artificial intelligence.

Traders will closely monitor comments from a slew of Fed officials later in the day for more hints on the central bank’s path of future interest rate hikes.

At 8:45 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 120 points, or 0.35%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 20.75 points, or 0.5%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 62.5 points, or 0.49%.

President Joe Biden‘s comments at the State of the Union Address on Tuesday evening that supported calls to tax corporate share buybacks also weighed on the mood.

“(The taxes) would not be a positive for the market because that would be a deterrent for companies to buy back stocks and so a headwind to the stock market,” Hayes added.

Halfway into earnings season, of all the S&P 500 companies that have reported quarterly earnings, 69% of them have beaten expectations, according to Refinitiv. Still, analysts expect fourth-quarter earnings to decline 2.9%.

Activision Blizzard(ATVI.O) slid 3.4% after UK’s antitrust regulator said Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) purchase of the “Call of Duty” maker raised competition concerns about cloud and console gaming.

Uber Technologies Inc(UBER.N) and Under Armour Inc(UAA.N) surged about 7% after issuing earnings expectations for the year.

At a porchfront coffee stand in the Cuban village of Isabela de Sagua, sunburned fishermen gather at first light to talk of wind, tide and, increasingly, the fine points of U.S. immigration policy.

The latest twist: A U.S. “parole” program announced in early January that allows up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba and some other countries to enter the United States each month provided they apply online, find a financial sponsor and pay airfare.

“Everyone is talking about it,” said Carlos Hernandez, a 49-year fisherman. He told Reuters the town was fast losing its population, fleeing the worst economic crisis to hit the country in decades. “People here are desperate to leave.”

This far-flung peninsula – on Cuba’s north-central coast just 130 miles (210 km) south of the Florida Keys – is poised to once again become a barometer for measuring the impact of U.S. immigration policy, say residents, who for decades have watched the ebb and flow of migrants from the town’s sand- and mangrove-lined shores.

Isabela de Sagua long ago became known in Cuba as a jumping-off point for maritime migrants, tempted by its proximity to U.S. territory and rules that were formerly lenient on Cubans who arrived by water.

More recently, an overland route became popular that wound north from Nicaragua through Central America and across Mexico to the U.S. border. Last year, U.S. officials intercepted upwards of a record 220,000 migrants from communist-run Cuba at the U.S. border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics.

Ana Maria Mederos, 59, who sells cups of coffee for 10 pesos (8 cents) each off her front porch, said Cubans would keep heading north in search of a better life as long as the economy continues to sputter.

“Cubans have made up their minds that you can’t live here, and they are going to get out any way they can,” she said, adding that she herself had no choice but to stay and care for a sick family member.

“Those who can leave under this new program will, but there are many who won’t have the possibility (of sponsorship) and will keep taking their chances by sea, over land, whatever.”

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has bet otherwise. The ‘parole’ policy was introduced in parallel with the expansion of a program to speedily expel migrants who enter illegally and in January it said the result had been a 97% drop in migrants arriving at the southwest U.S. border from Cuba and three other countries.

The village residents confirmed that those previously flocking to Nicaragua to head overland had largely changed strategies, many opting instead to try their luck with the parole program. Reuters spoke with several residents, documents in hand, who were seeking to renew passports or prepare a parole application.

However, 20 Republican-controlled U.S. states have already sought to block the parole program through the courts, calling it an “unlawful amnesty program” that will worsen the immigration crisis.

Miguel Negrin, 56, who sells vegetables from a makeshift trailer towed behind his 1958 Dodge, said it was now or never for those looking to migrate legally to the United States.

“Whoever can take advantage of Biden’s program better, because it won’t last long,” he said.

The United States has warned that Cubans taking to the sea from places like Isabela de Sagua and trying to land on U.S. soil could become ineligible for the new parole program.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard in Florida told Reuters that the agency had not tabulated the number of Cuban migrants intercepted at sea since the Biden policy announcement on Jan. 5, though the agency has said it repatriated more than 200 Cuban maritime migrants in January.

During the last week of January, fishermen told Reuters at least two separate groups of migrants left Isabela de Sagua by sea. At least one group had been caught and returned to Cuban soil, they said.

One woman, who declined to be interviewed or give her name, said through a crack in her door that she had made a failed attempt by sea and had been returned by U.S. agents.

A Cuban Border Guard boat patrols the bay off the shore of Isabela de Sagua, which is ringed by densely-wooded, mostly uninhabited keys.

Several confiscated rustic boats, hammered out from zinc roofing and with styrofoam inside, now sit behind a chain-link fence guarding the Border Guard’s barracks.

There are no official statistics on how many migrants have left Isabela de Sagua, but desolate streets on a recent Saturday morning, lined with shuttered homes and restaurants, hint at the exodus taking place.

Local resident Felix Garcia, 60, retired from the military and disabled with epilepsy, said he and his wife live off 1,500 pesos a month, approximately $12.50 at the official exchange rate. He told Reuters he had not been able to find medicine for his illness in months.

“The parole program works if you have someone to sponsor you. But me? I have no one,” he said. “I will probably die here.”

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JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) called on a U.S. judge to dismiss lawsuits by victims of Jeffrey Epstein who accused the banks of enabling the late financier’s sexual abuses.

Both requests were filed on Tuesday night in Manhattan federal court, in proposed class action lawsuits by unnamed victims seeking financial damages.

The banks said there were no allegations they knew about or actively did anything to further Epstein’s sex trafficking, and had no legal duty to protect the women from his abuses.

Epstein was a client of JPMorgan from about 2000 to 2013, and of Deutsche Bank from 2013 to 2018. The plaintiffs have said numerous cash payments from the banks were used to pay Epstein’s victims.

JPMorgan’s filing was also that bank’s most extensive discussion of the alleged role of former investment banking chief Jes Staley, including an allegation he had “personally observed” Epstein’s abuse of the plaintiff known as Jane Doe 1.

Staley is not a defendant and has denied wrongdoing.

JPMorgan called the accusations about Staley “conclusory.” It also said there was no evidence it knew Epstein battered the plaintiff, and that providing him with banking services did not amount to “substantial assistance” for abuses.

“The complaint emphasizes JPMC’s alleged failure to act on warning signs” about Epstein, the bank said. “Such allegations cannot establish substantial assistance.”

Lawyers for the plaintiffs were not immediately available for comment on Wednesday.

Staley left JPMorgan in 2013, and later became chief executive of Barclays Plc (BARC.L).

He stepped down from Barclays in 2021 amid a dispute with British financial regulators over his ties to Epstein.

Staley’s relationship with Epstein is also at issue in a lawsuit by the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned two private islands, seeking to hold JPMorgan liable for ignoring Epstein’s sex trafficking there.

Epstein killed himself at age 66 in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The cases are Jane Doe 1 v Deutsche Bank AG et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-10018, and Jane Doe 1 v JPMorgan Chase & Co in the same court, No. 22-10019.

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