Just when you think the hacks couldn’t get any deeper, the Russian government goes and hacks the DNC (Democratic National Committee). According to the Washington Post’s sources, hackers working for the Russian government “penetrated” DNC computer systems, and so far it looks like they were after data collected by the DNC on Donald Trump. According to security officials, these hackers did such an excellent job of hacking the DNC’s computers they were able to read all emails and chat traffic. But the DNC isn’t the only target, and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have both been targets, as have the GOP. We only have confirmation that the DNC’s systems were compromised though.
The Washington Post reports that some of the hackers have had access to the DNC’s systems for around a year and all were expelled over the weekend in a computer security clean-up. The DNC says no financial, donor, or personal information was taken from their systems and that this was an act of “espionage” not a crime for monetary gain.
“It’s the job of every foreign intelligence service to collect intelligence against their adversaries,” said Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm called in to handle the DNC breach and a former head of the FBI’s cyber division. He noted that it is extremely difficult for a civilian organization to protect itself from a skilled and determined state such as Russia.
“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. “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 said. “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.”
We cover computer security and hacking incidents here at Techaeris extensively and seeing the DNC get hacked in this manner should be alarming to all. We’ve said it time and again, these incidents are only going to increase and personal data is a hot commodity. There are measures you can take to protect yourself as best as possible but in the end, no one is truly immune to a hacker if they wish to get what they want, not even a government. Read more in depth coverage at the Washington Post link below.
What do you think about the latest exposed hack? Let us know in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Washington Post[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
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