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After that foothold is established, the malicious code, the real hackers get to work and grow out from there. Russian President Vladimir Putin's government denies direct involvement, but Russian intelligence is thought to routinely use cyber gangs to do its bidding and to create plausible deniability. Within the former Soviet bloc, Russian-speaking hackers pay homage as cyber-militia members to the regime in Russia, they act as proxies … when called upon to leverage their sophisticatedtool sets and attack against victims in the U.S.