According to CrowdStrike, the Fancy Bear breach at DNC dates back to at least April of 2016, which corresponds to the period during which a phishing campaign targeting DNC and Clinton campaign e-mails was detected by SecureWorks analysts.
Advertisement
Just like the Democratic National Committee found itself the target of a hacker prior to and during its national convention, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, confirmed that it, too, was the target of a cyberattack.
“An analytics data program maintained by the DNC, and used by our campaign and a number of other entities, was accessed as part of the DNC hack”, spokesman Nick Merrill said. The aide said the campaign had already been aware of the attempted cyber intrusions, and had implemented security steps to protect its networks.
Hackers gained access to the campaign’s network for five days, according to Reuters, and concentrated on systems used to gather and analyze voting data.
The U.S. Department of Justice is now investigating whether breaches in Democratic political organizations constitutes a threat to national security.
The involvement of the Justice Department’s national security division is a sign the Obama administration has concluded the hacking was sponsored by a state, people with knowledge of the investigation said.
The FBI warned the Clinton campaign in March that it had been targeted by hackers, Yahoo News said.
Emails among DNC employees were released by anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks over the weekend appearing to expose favoritism for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her chief rival in the primary contest, Senator Bernie Sanders.
The FBI said it is working to determine the “accuracy, nature and scope” of reports of cyber intrusions “involving multiple political entities”.
Clinton’s campaign has blamed Russian Federation for hacking the emails, which were made public by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
Advertisement
Especially when the suspects are nation-states, the official said, the intent of the warning is to make sure the target firms up its cyber defenses, since the US government rarely seeks to prosecute foreign intelligence hackers.
