Hackers who are believed to be working for the Russian government breached the network of the Democratic National Committee, and spied on internal communications by stealing data from the Democratic presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Two separate groups are reported to have infiltrated the DNC system, managing to read all e‑mail and monitor chat communications for almost an entire year before being detected, according to security firm CrowdStrike, which took on fixing the security gaps.
Russian spies also monitored the networks of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as well as the computers of some Republican political action committees, according to a Washington Post publication.
A representative of the Russian government denied any participation in the breaches.
“We completely rule out the possibility that the (Russian) government or state entities were involved in this”, said Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, to Reuters in Moscow.
The invasion is indicative of the complexity of the technique of Russian hackers, whom intelligence service officials have long considered among the most talented there are.
The Democratic Party is said to have known the hackers' attempts to steal Trump material for two months, and indeed the US intelligence agencies had become involved trying to find out who was behind the hacking, said a source familiar with the opposition's investigation.
The same source reported that agents of the Democratic Party believed the hack was carried out by the Russian government.
The online attacks against political candidates and organizations are common worldwide. The Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) James Clapper said last month that he was aware of hacking attempts in campaigns and that he expected more to be discovered by November 8, when the presidential elections will take place.
The first group, which according to CrowdStrike is called Cozy Bear, entered the DNC's systems last summer. It mainly monitored email and chat conversations, and the hackers may be working for Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB.
The second group was named Fancy Bear, and they are likely working on behalf of Russia's military. The group managed to gain access in late April and “went straight to the OPPO investigation … for Donald Trump.”
We should note that in the two most recent presidential cycles of the USA in 2008 and 2012 there was a barrage of cyber attacks from many opponents targeting the campaign of President Barack Obama and the campaigns of his Republican opponents.
U.S. intelligence officials had reported that many previous attacks were linked to Chinese hackers.
