Beware: Hackers are planting child porn on people's computers

Andrew Higgens published an article on December 9, 2016 in the New York Times titled, ‘Foes of Russia Say Child Pornography is Planted to Ruin Them.’ The article outlines the accusations made against the Kremlin for adopting what Higgens describes as a “new and particularly noxious form of an old K.G.B. dirty trick known as kompromat – the fabrication and planting of compromising or illegal material.”

Now a new report adds to the fuel, further confirming that Russian hackers may try to frame Americans by planting child porn on their computers.

This is the kind of “cyber mischief-making where Russia has proved its prowess in the Baltic States, Georgia, Ukriane and according to American intelligence officials, in the computers of the Democratic National Committee,” the report added.

The latest update on this story brings us to a committee hearing that took place recently wherein Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated that he would not put it past Russia to plant child pornography on American’s computers. As reported by Sky News, Clapper tells a Senate hearing that the hacking conclusions are based on “human sources, technical collection and open source information,” that testifies that Russia has indeed been hacking US computers.

Clapper made the shocking statement at a Tuesday (10 January) hearing about Russian cyber-attacks during the US election.

He also added that Russia tried to influence elections in a “couple of dozen” countries. When asked about other countries where elections are due to take place soon, he said he could not say to what extent Germany, France and the Netherlands had increased their defences against cyber attacks but he believes that Russians had concluded that it was best to support then Republican candidate Donald Trump because he was a businessman and “he’d be easier to make deals with” than Democrats.

Russian cyber activities have gained increased scrutiny in the West, as multiple countries have been accusing the former of tampering with elections.