Democratic National Committee hacked by Russian government – Trump opposition research stolen

(Trump.news) It seems that presumptive Republican presidential nominee has some foreign assistance to his campaign – in Russia.

As reported by The Washington Post, hackers working on behalf of the Russian government have hacked into the information systems of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research that had been conducted against Trump, say DNC officials and security experts who are dealing with the breach.

In fact, the Post noted, hackers so thoroughly compromised the DNC IT system they were able to read all emails and all chat traffic, according to security experts and DNC officials who spoke to the paper.

The Post noted further:

The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.

Russian Embassy personnel did not have any knowledge of, or comment about, the breach.

The Post said that some of the hackers had access to the Democrat network for nearly a year but all of them were expelled from the system over the past weekend in a major cybersecurity effort to clean out the system, according to committee officials and cyber experts.

The DNC reported that no financial, donor or other personal information was accessed or stolen, which suggests to cyber experts that the hack was traditional espionage and not the work of criminals who would have taken such information for later exploitation and enrichment.

Such intrusions are just the latest example of Moscow’s interest in the U.S. political system as well as its goal of understanding policies, strengths and weakness of the person who could become the nation’s next president. It’s the same kind of espionage that American intelligence agencies attempt to gather on foreign candidates and leaders.

Still, the breadth and depth of the Russian breach of the DNC system reflects both the skill and the desire of Washington’s primary cyber opponent as Russia continues to target other vital U.S. IT systems, from White House and State Department servers to those of political organizations and groups.

“It’s the job of every foreign intelligence service to collect intelligence against their adversaries,” Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm brought in to take care of the DNC breach, as well as a former head of the FBI’s cyber division, told the Post. He added that it is very hard for a civilian organization to defend its systems from a skilled and determined state cyber actor, like Russia.

“We’re perceived as an adversary of Russia,” he noted. “Their job when they wake up every day is to gather intelligence against the policies, practices and strategies of the U.S. government. There are a variety of ways. [Hacking] is one of the more valuable because it gives you a treasure trove of information.”

For Trump’s part, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has spoken favorably of the likely GOP nominee; Trump, meanwhile, has called for better relations with Russia and expressed skepticism about NATO.

However, unlike Clinton – who very likely has been on Russian espionage radars for some time because of her long political career – Trump is not a careerist in politics and thus may be a lesser known quantity.

“The purpose of such intelligence gathering is to understand the target’s proclivities,” said Robert Deitz, former senior councillor to the CIA director and a former general counsel at the National Security Agency, the Post reported.

“Trump’s foreign investments, for example, would be relevant to understanding how he would deal with countries where he has those investments” should he be elected, Deitz added. “They may provide tips for understanding his style of negotiating. In short, this sort of intelligence could be used by Russia, for example, to indicate where it can get away with foreign adventurism,” he continued.

Sources:

WashingtonPost.com

Clinton.news

Science.NaturalNews.com