A month after party institutions hacked by Russians, more unnamed officials reported to come under cyber attack
The FBI suspects foreign hackers have attempted to break into phones belonging to members of the Democratic Party, among them unnamed elected officials, Reuters quotedgovernment sources as saying Tuesday.
The cyberattacks took place in the past month, and investigators suspect that like August’s hack of party servers, Russian hackers may be behind the incident.
It wasn’t clear from the report whether the hacks were successful or not.
The attacks came a month after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told fellow Democrats she was the target of “an electronic Watergate break-in” targeting the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other Democratic Party entities.
As a result, a mix of personal and official information of Democratic members and hundreds of congressional staff, purportedly from a hack of the DCCC, was posted online, she said.
A hacker who calls himself Guccifer 2.0 took credit for posting the information. He had claimed responsibility for the recent hack of Democratic National Committee emails, which roiled the Democratic National Convention last month. While Guccifer 2.0 has described himself as a Romanian hacker and denies working for Russia, online investigators assert that he is linked to Russia.
President Barack Obama said in late July that Russia may have been behind the leak of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails. Obama, who noted that outside experts have blamed Russia for the leak, suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin may have had reason to facilitate the attack.
The FBI, which is investigating, hasn’t publicly attributed the attack to Russia. But Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign has, implying that the goal was to benefit Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
As reported by The Times of Israel