Young Russian denies she aided election hackers: ‘I never work with douchebags’

White House claims Alisa Shevchenko was involved in hacking the US election but in an interview she says authorities misinterpreted facts or were fooled.

Alisa Shevchenko is a talented young Russian hacker, known for working with companies to find vulnerabilities in their systems. She spends her winters in Asia, meditating and training in Thai kickboxing.

She is also, the White House claims, guilty of helping Vladimir Putin interfere in the US election.

Her company was a surprise inclusion on the US sanctions list released last week, alongside top officers in Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency and two well-known criminal hackers. The company “provided the GRU with technical research and development”, according to the fact sheet released by the White House. No further details were given.

Shevchenko told the Guardian she was furious at her company’s inclusion on the list, and denied ever having knowingly worked for the Russian government. She communicated via encrypted email, from a location she said was “a wild countryside area a few hours away from Bangkok”.

In answers that were defiant, and occasionally abrasive, she decried the “insane level of hysteria around the entire ‘Russian hacking’ story”.

She suggested that the US authorities were guilty either of “a technically incompetent misinterpretation of the facts” or had been fooled by a “counterfeit in order to frame my company”. Those who could have had an interest in framing her could include competitors, US intelligence or Russian intelligence, with the goal of screening the real culprits, Shevchenko said.

“A young female hacker and her helpless company seems like a perfect pick for that goal. I don’t try to hide, I travel a lot, and am a friendly communicative person. And most importantly, I don’t have any big money, power or connections behind me to shrug off the blame. So really, it could be anyone.”

LOOKS UNLIKELY THAT SHE WILL EVER TAKE ON A GIG WITH THE CFMEUALP EITHER!

Shevchenko said she had turned down plenty of offers of work on ideological grounds: “I never work with douchebags. I only work with honest and open people that I feel good about.” Asked directly if she had ever worked on a government contract in any capacity, she answered “not that I know of”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/06/russian-hacker-putin-election-alisa-shevchenko?CMP=share_btn_tw

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