Hackers affiliated with the Russian Government have had access to the Democratic National Committee’s files regarding their oppositional research on Donald Trump for the past year.
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Donald Trump is still new to politics, the firm explained, meaning Russian officials are still gathering intel on the GOP candidate and possible USA president.
It seems to be time for some good old-fashioned cyber espionage, as Russian hackers have broken into the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) database.
“I absolutely rule out any possibility of any government or government structures involvement in it”, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in a message.
It said some of the hackers had access to the Democratic National Committee network for about a year “but all were expelled over the past weekend in a major computer cleanup campaign”. The DNC said donor, financial and personal information did not appear to have been accessed by the hackers.
DNC chairman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) acknowledged the breach in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “Our team moved as quickly as possible to kick out the intruders and secure our network”.
The hackers were so deep into the DNC’s network that they were able to read all email and online chat communications, committee officials and security experts told The Washington Post, which first reported the hack. However the intrusion, which has been denied by the Russian government, was not limited to Trump.
The Washington Post quoted USA officials as saying Russian spies also targeted the networks of Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as well as computers of some Republican political action committees.
“We’re perceived as an adversary of Russia.Their job when they wake up every day is to gather intelligence against the policies, practices and strategies of the USA government”.
CrowdStrike Inc., a cybersecurity firm, said the DNC asked it to investigate a suspected breach of its systems that began as early as last summer.
CrowdStrike found that two separate Russian groups were responsible for the hacks.
Two separate groups entered the DNC’s system, and one read email and chat communications for almost a year before being detected, according to the committee and CrowdStrike, the cyber firm that helped clean up the breach.
Fancy Bear is believed to work for the GRU, or Russia’s military intelligence service, Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder and chief technology officer, told the Post. Fancy Bear got access in April of this year and stole the research on Trump, he said.
Russian Federation and the U.S. have not seen eye to eye for quite some time now, and the Eastern European powerhouse has an interest in the United States political system.
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The two groups did not appear to be working together, CrowdStrike said.
