Last year, hackers attacked car giant Jaguar Land Rover (JPL), one of Britain's biggest employers. The hack halted production for several months and dealt a blow to the country's economy. The damage was so severe that the British government decided to bail out the company by paying 1.5 billion pounds (approximately $2 billion), and the loss to the British economy due to the hacking was estimated at $2.5 billion.
For months, there was only speculation as to who did it. Now, the New York Times reports, citing people close to the investigation, that the hackers behind the breach were Russian, but it's still unclear whether they were working directly for Vladimir Putin's government, just criminals, or something in between – criminals operating with the government's tacit approval.
Microsoft has been tracking a group of Russian hackers and has alerted JLR to information about the hackers' identities, the Times reported. But sources also said the FBI, Britain's National Crime Agency and National Cyber Security Center, Google's Mandiant division, and Palo Alto Networks were all working on the investigation.
In a rare but unprecedented event in the world of cybersecurity, it turns out that a group of Russian hackers was not the only one to infiltrate some JPL networks. According to the paper, a Jordanian hacker calling himself Ray also infiltrated the site.