Unidentified Russian hackers targeted the Democrats ahead of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) last month, exposing the pro-Hillary Clinton bias inside the party during the primaries. An investigation by the FBI has revealed that the scope of the attack may be a lot bigger than initially expected.
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According to The New York Times, the attackers were able to breach the private email accounts of more than 100 party officials and groups. The primary targets were the personal email accounts of Clinton’s campaign officials and party operatives, as well as various party organizations.
The hackers were able to gain access to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the DNC, and even tapped into a DNC voter analytics program that was used by Clinton’s campaign, officials said initially.
However, it has come to light that other groups inside the party including the Democratic Governors’ Association have been affected by the hacks.
Officials believe that another batch of damaging material could be made public before the November presidential elections. Just before the DNC kicked off last month, emails obtained by the hackers and published by WikiLeaks lead to the resignation of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Intelligence agencies investigating the matter have “high confidence” the attack was planned and carried out by Russian intelligence agencies. It’s unclear whether the hack was part of regular cyber spying operations, or whether it’s intended to only manipulate the upcoming election.
It’s not clear whether the attackers were also responsible for the hack that targeted Clinton’s private email server, or at least the FBI has no proof the private email server was hacked by Russian hackers or anyone else.
There’s no evidence that the hackers also went after Donald Trump’s campaign with similar attacks.
The Times’ full report on the matter is available at this link.
