Bloomberg: Clinton Foundation Email Hacked By Russian Spies
A wide ranging spy dragnet emanating from Russia successfully hacked into the Clinton Foundation’s email system, Bloomberg News is reporting. The Clinton campaign was made aware that it had been the target of hackers with links to the Russian government in April, the report said, citing a person familiar with the computer security set up. However, an official spokesperson for the foundation, Brian Cookstra, told Bloomberg he was unaware of the breach. An embarrassing data-dump from the hack is expected to occur before the US presidential election.
FBI, NSA and Secret Service now involved in Clinton email hack
The Democratic National Committee, which recently experienced its own hacking incident that wasconfirmed to emanate from the Russian government, has engaged the law firm of Baker and McKenzie and numerous technology companies, including FireEye Inc., Palo Alto Networks Inc. and Fidelis Cybersecurity, to help identify the attackers and button up the insecure systems. The Clinton hack is being treated with a similar magnitude behind the scenes, even if public reporting on the topic is scant.
The U.S. Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency are involved in the investigation of the theft of data from not only the Clintons but also computer hacks into nearly 4,000 political parties and individuals over the last several months, one of the people familiar with the investigation told Bloomberg’s Michael Riley and Jordan Robertson. No public statement from the agencies has been made regarding the Clinton breach. The FBI, for its part, is being careful to keep its criminal investigation of the Clinton email server separate from the Russian hack, using separate investigators, the report noted.
Watch for an embarrassing data dump to occur leading up to the US presidential election
The thefts set the stage for a potential serious of embarrassing revelations that could rival the 2014 hack of Sony, the report noted. In that hack, gossip laden communications and inner thoughts previously thought to be private were revealed.
From a political standpoint the Democrats are anticipating that confirming links to Russian spies will mute anger at Clinton over the email content and the fact that an unsecure email system was used that had the potential to compromise national security.
During the Democratic primary campaign the email issue, the subject of an unprecedented FBI criminal investigation into a leading presidential candidate, was not raised as a major issue. The ongoing FBIinvestigation is not only targeting email usage but also said to be investigating incidents of influence peddling.
The Clinton campaign remains reasonably resolute on the issue.
“We routinely communicate and cooperate with government agencies on security-related matters,” Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin told Bloomberg. “What appears evident is that the Russian groups responsible for the DNC hack are intent on attempting to influence the outcome of this election.”
Source | ValueWalk
