‘As Big as It Gets’: Russia Hacks DNC Computers, Steals All Opposition Research on Trump

Putin’s Government Goal Appears to Be Espionage, Not Financial, DNC Says

Vladimir Putin’s Russian government illegally hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s computer systems, stealing its entire cache of opposition research against Donald Trump. The extent of the hacking is so severe the Russians even accessed chat messages and emails.

The DNC has confirmed the hacking, but says no personal donor or financial information has been accessed.

The Washington Post broke the story in a report published at 11:30 AM EDT, noting that that the breach appeared to be “traditional espionage, not the work of criminal hackers.”

The Russian Embassy denies the hacking.

The Post reports the DNC noticed unusual activity and says they acted immediately. 

“Within 24 hours,” the Post says, a cyber security firm named CrowdStrike, whose president was the head of the FBI’s cyber security division, “had installed software on the DNC’s computers so that it could analyze audit data that could indicate who had gained access, when and how.”

NBC News’ NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC minutes ago said of the hacking, “This is as big as it gets.”

 

Image by Kjetil Korslien via Flickr and a CC license