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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSo when did the DNC know they were hacked and when did the FBI tell them?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html?_r=1WASHINGTON When Special Agent Adrian Hawkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the Democratic National Committee in September 2015 to pass along some troubling news about its computer network, he was transferred, naturally, to the help desk.
His message was brief, if alarming. At least one computer system belonging to the D.N.C. had been compromised by hackers federal investigators had named the Dukes, a cyberespionage team linked to the Russian government.
The F.B.I. knew it well: The bureau had spent the last few years trying to kick the Dukes out of the unclassified email systems of the White House, the State Department and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the governments best-protected networks.
Yared Tamene, the tech-support contractor at the D.N.C. who fielded the call, was no expert in cyberattacks. His first moves were to check Google for the Dukes and conduct a cursory search of the D.N.C. computer system logs to look for hints of such a cyberintrusion. By his own account, he did not look too hard even after Special Agent Hawkins called back repeatedly over the next several weeks in part because he wasnt certain the caller was a real F.B.I. agent and not an impostor.
It was the cryptic first sign of a cyberespionage and information-warfare campaign devised to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, the first such attempt by a foreign power in American history. What started as an information-gathering operation, intelligence officials believe, ultimately morphed into an effort to harm one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her opponent, Donald J. Trump.
Like another famous American election scandal, it started with a break-in at the D.N.C. The first time, 44 years ago at the committees old offices in the Watergate complex, the burglars planted listening devices and jimmied a filing cabinet. This time, the burglary was conducted from afar, directed by the Kremlin, with spear-phishing emails and zeros and ones.
The D.N.C.s fumbling encounter with the F.B.I. meant the best chance to halt the Russian intrusion was lost. The failure to grasp the scope of the attacks undercut efforts to minimize their impact. And the White Houses reluctance to respond forcefully meant the Russians have not paid a heavy price for their actions, a decision that could prove critical in deterring future cyberattacks.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)And did nothing.
I'm sorry but Yared Tamene failed at his job as a tech-support contractor.
underthematrix
(5,811 posts)the DNC and RNC found out they were being hacked sometime BEFORE July 2016
HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)After being warned to stop.
The head of Crowdstrike is as you might find humorous, an ex pat Russian.
Published 4/8/15
Obama to Putin: Stop Hacking Me
The U.S. is calling out Russia for a dramatic rise in cyber espionage against America. Its part of a veiled threat to the Kremlin: We know what youre doing online.
Shane Harris
SHANE HARRIS
04.08.15 9:00 PM ET
Ever since the U.S. government hit Russia with economic sanctions last year, Russian hackers have started new cyberspying campaigns to steal information from U.S. government agencies and corporations, according to current and former American intelligence officials and cybersecurity experts.
Now, American officials are fighting backby outing the hackers and issuing what some see as veiled threats to Moscow.
Three former U.S. intelligence officers who worked on counterintelligence and cyber operations told The Daily Beast that a new report this week accusing Russia of infiltrating unclassified networks at the White House was apparently designed to send a message to the Kremlin: We know what youre up to, and how youre doing it.
We are seeing a dramatic rise in cyber intrusion activity from the Russian government since the sanctions regime was put in place against them last year, Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, told The Daily Beast. Beginning in March 2014, the Obama administration imposed a series of sanctions designed to punish Russia for its invasion of Crimea and subsequent military incursions in eastern Ukraine, and U.S. officials have said theyre helping to depress Russias economy, already hurting because of falling oil prices.
Alperovitch said there was no indication that [the cyberintrusions] are retaliatory. Rather, as Russia finds itself struggling to stay afloat, they are using cyber espionage to at least in part compensate for loss of competitiveness they are experiencing. Alperovitch said the hacking has been tied to a single source, or actor, that CrowdStrike refers to as Cozy Bear.
In the past year, researchers have also linked Russian hackers believed to be working for the government to other spying campaigns, including against NATO, the Ukrainian government, energy companies in Poland, and an academic at an American university who was targeted because he studies Ukraine.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that according to U.S. officials, Russian hackers had penetrated portions of the White House computer network by gaining access from another perch, at the State Department, where intruders had gotten inside the unclassified email system.
The intrusion reported by CNN is not a new incident, a spokesman for the National Security Council said. Rather, it was acknowledged by the White House last year after intruders accessed an unclassified network used by the Executive Office of the President.