The Obama administration on Friday said it was “confident” Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and associated entities, saying the scale of the hacking indicated a level of sophistication that pointed to the government.
“The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S political organizations,” said a joint statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“The recent disclosures of alleged hacked emails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process,” the statement added. “We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”
The statement called on state officials to ask the feds for help with cybersecurity for the election. “DHS continues to urge state and local election officials to be vigilant and seek cybersecurity assistance … DHS is providing several services to state and local election officials to assist in their cybersecurity. These services include cyber ‘hygiene’ scans of Internet-facing systems, risk and vulnerability assessments, information sharing about cyberincidents, and best practices for securing voter registration databases and addressing potential cyberthreats.”
The DNC disclosed in June that it had been hacked by “Fancy Bear,” linked to Russian military intelligence agency GRU, and “Cozy Bear,” linked to the country’s Federal Security Service. That incident was followed by a breach of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee by the same groups. Nearly 20,000 emails from the DNC hack were disclosed in July, leading to the resignation of top party officials. Files from the DCCC have been subsequently released in periodic batches.
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The files obtained from the DNC were published by WikiLeaks, which did not name its source. The DCCC files have been published by Guccifer 2.0, who claims to be a Romanian hacker, but evidence has linked to Russia.
DCLeaks has published information from a range of public figures this year, including liberal billionaire George Soros and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The site also published emails from Republican Senate staffers, including those in the offices of Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Clinton family’s philanthropic Clinton Foundation were reportedly hacked over the summer, but files definitively linked to either have yet to emerge. Guccifer 2.0 claimed to release files from the foundation early this week, but their authenticity has not been confirmed, and some indications suggested they may have been duplicates of files obtained from the DCCC.
