Guccifer 2.0 is Identified as a GRU Officer by US Investigators for Login to US Social Media Service without a VPN

Unexpectedly, Russian hackers make mistakes when it comes to VPNs. According to the report, “the hacker left a real, Moscow-based Internet Protocol address in the server logs of an American social media company, according to a source familiar with the government’s Guccifer investigation.”

Guccifer 2.0, the lone hacker who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee has been recognized as an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU).

The hacker once exposed embarrassing details about Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC’s inner workings for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes. It was a piece of great news for President Donald Trump ahead of the election. In fact, the similar thing happened during the presidential election of 2016.

This time, the Guccifer persona apparently neglected to switch on the VPN client to h their traffic before logging on. According to the Daily Beast’s sources, the U.S. investigators used that IP address to connect Guccifer to a Russian foreign military intelligence agency known as GRU.

In those years, almost immediately various cyber security companies and individuals were skeptical of Guccifer 2.0 and the backstory that he had generated for himself. In fact, he is not pegged as the Romanian activist he claimed to be, but a Russian operative.

It is reported that Ehmke’s team who identified that Guccifer was using a service called Elite VPN. They revealed that it indeed existed in France, but had Russian headquarters. Then, it was a case of tracking the one-off IP address to none other than GRU HQ on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow.

It is reported that Mueller has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team. It’s still unclear what Mueller plans to do with Guccifer. Its office declined to comment for this story. Likely, Guccifer 2.0 would cross the Kremlin threshold as an officer of Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency. That would move the investigation closer to Trump himself. That forensic determination has substantial implications for the criminal probe into potential collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia. From this lesson, we know that it is very important to hide IP address and encrypt traffics to keep anonymous on the Internet.