fancy bear (also known as apt28 (by mandiant), pawn storm, sofacy group (by kaspersky), sednit, tsar team (by fireeye) and strontium (by microsoft)) is a russian cyber espionage group. cybersecurity firm crowdstrike has said with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the russian military intelligence agency gru. the uk's foreign and commonwealth office as well as security firms secureworks, threatconnect, and fireeye's mandiant, have also said the group is sponsored by the russian government. in 2018, an indictment by the united states special counsel identified fancy bear as two gru units known as unit 26165 and unit 74455.