In an effort to keep itself updated on the presumptive Republican Party nominee, Donald Trump, the Russian government hacked the Democratic National Committee, DNC, computer networks and managed to come out with all the information that the Democrats had on Trump. This is according to committee researchers.
The Russian hackers apparently had access to the DNC servers for over a year, and they were able to read through each and every incoming and outgoing email and all the chat traffic that took place on the network.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chairman, said that when they discovered the intrusion they gave it the proper respect that a serious intrusion like this needed. She said that the security researchers managed to kick out the Kremlin hackers as soon as they discovered the intrusion.
It is believed that the Russian hackers also targeted various networks for the presumptive presidential nominees, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. The US officials said that some other Republican political action committees were also part of the targets, and they did not provide anything further than that.
All the hacking attacks directed towards the DNC were mainly looking at the organization’s research files, and prominently on Donald Trump, rather looking for all the dirt that the DNC had managed to get on him.
Luckily, according to the DNC, no donor information was accessed or taken by the hackers. Once they got wind of the breach, the DNC acted swiftly and hired CrowdStrike, a cyber-company that was used to remove the threat. The security firm said that they had found evidence of hacking from two different groups.
The first one, codenamed Cozy Bear, had earlier broken into the DNC last year in summer and was looking for all the chats and emails which were sent through the DNC networks. The second group which was codenamed the Fancy Bear, managed to hack the servers in April and received opposition research files.
It is believed the Kremlin already has all the information on Hillary Clinton because she has been politically active for a long time now.
Analysts are saying that the move is an effort by the Russian government to know more of the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee, Donald Trump, who is a relatively unknown quantity in the political field even though he had fame before he started politics.
Robert Deitz, a former senior counselor to the CIA director and also a former general counsel at the National Security Agency, said that he believed the purpose of the attack was to gather as much information as they could on the target. The intelligence could help them understand his way of negotiating.
The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
