#Italian #police arrest two over #hacking at defence group Leonardo | Reuters https://t.co/IQHSo2hzQl
— Billy Long (@auctnr1) January 10, 2021
Leonardo SpA employee Arturo D’Elia was arrested on December 5, 2020, accused of infecting his company’s computer system with programs allowing confidential information to be exfiltrated – or exported – to outside computers.
Ninety-four workstations were affected by the malware program, authorities say. The hacking took place over the course of two years from 2015 to 2017 and authorities allege 10 gigabytes worth of data – the equivalent of about 100,000 files – were illegally transferred.
(You can find the original announcement by Italian authorities here and a translated version here.)
The files related to “design of components for civil aircraft and military aircraft for the domestic and international market as well as access credentials and other personal information of Leonardo employees,” authorities say.
Another man, an employee of another company but working as a contractor for Leonardo, was also arrested at the time. That man is identified as Antonio Rossi.
The timing of the arrests is notable as it was just four days after a story appeared in major Italian news publication La Verita that outlined allegations of interference in the Nov. 3 U.S.
The story was headlined: “Gli avvocati di Trump non hanno dubbi: Una manina italiana nei brogli pro Biden,” or “Trump’s Lawyers Have No Doubts: ‘An Italian Hand in the Pro-Biden Brogli.’” Brogli is Italian for fraud.
In the story, journalist Daniele Capezzone wrote the Trump campaign was at an “advanced stage” in investigating the allegations.
Arturo D’Elia says he was at the center of that operation.
D’Elia claims vote manipulation was carried out in various locations in Italy on election night including U.S. Embassy Rome. Manipulated votes were beamed back to voting machines in the U.S. using military satellites owned and operated by Leonardo.
D’Elia claims he has copies of the data detailing actual votes numbers and the numbers of votes that were switched from President Donald Trump to Joe Biden. That data, according to Maria Zack, Chairwoman of NationsInAction.org, shows President Trump actually won the election by a “huge margins.”
Interestingly, D’Elia is described in the police report above as being an IT security manager for Leonardo. But in a subsequent press release, (original link here) the company makes a point of describing D’Elia as “non-executive” – an apparent effort at minimizing his credibility. D’Elia’s LinkedIn profile lists his function as “Security Team Lead.”
The company does not mention why it took years to bring charges against the men. Numerous requests for comment on the story have gone unanswered.
Zack has been working with who she calls “patriotic” Italians who are “willing to stand up and fight for our country, not just theirs,” to expose the truth about what happened in Italy. An affidavit signed and sworn to by D’Elia’s attorney, Alfio D’Urso, was delivered to several members of Congress on the morning of Jan. 6 outlining the scheme, according to Zack.
Voting would resume after a breach the U.S. Capitol Building suspended voting on the Electoral College that day, and the election would be certified for Joe Biden in the dead of the night.