Russian hackers penetrate Democratic National Committee computers

A hack on the Democratic National Committee has given attackers access to a massive trove of data, including all opposition research into presidential candidate Donald Trump and nearly a year’s worth of private e-mail and chat messages, according to a published report. The DNC has stated that no financial, donor or personal information has been accessed or stolen which would suggest that the hack was an act of espionage, not a typical attempt by hackers looking to profit from their infiltration. But they provided no further details on those cases.

She called the incident “serious” and said the committee “worked as quickly as possible to kick out the intruders and secure our network”. It was the first group to breach the DNC network last summer, while Fancy Bear conducted its own attack in April. They said that the hackers accessed the DNC’s emails, chats, and all of their information regarding their main opposition in the election, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

CrowdStrike reported Tuesday that one group of hackers was able to execute computer code remotely on systems running Microsoft Windows.

Less is known about the other group, nicknamed “Cozy Bear”.

Trump has spoken favorably of Russian president Vladimir Putin and told CNN previous year he’d get along with Putin ‘very well’. Analysts told The Washington Post that because Trump is not a longtime politician, “foreign agencies are playing catch-up”.

“Our team considers them some of the best adversaries out of all the numerous nation-state, criminal and hacktivist/terrorist groups we encounter on a daily basis”, said the CrowdStrike report, written by firm cofounder Dmitri Alperovitch. The Post reported the hackers may have gotten into the network using a method called “spearphishing”, where hackers send employees emails that contain links or attachments that can cause a network breach.

It didn’t appear that the two groups had coordinated the attacks together, Alperovitch told the Post. “There’s an incredible adversarial relationship” among the Russian intelligence agencies, Alperovitch said. “We didn’t see any evidence of organized crime”.

The Cozy Bear group had earlier managed to infiltrate unclassified networks of the White House, U.S. State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“We know with certainty that foreign intelligence services are constantly interested in political processes”.

Rhode Island Rep. Jim Langevin, the Democratic co-chairman of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, praised what he said was the DNC’s transparency and quickness in responding to the second breach, but said the report was concerning.

“They may provide tips for understanding his style of negotiating”, Deitz added.

Democratic National Committee computer databases have been compromised by Russian cyber spies.