Tipsheet

Cybersecurity Firm Believes Russian Military Was Behind DNC Hack

A cybersecurity firm called CrowdStrike has "high confidence" that a Russian military intelligence agency authored the very public hack into the Democratic National Committee, The Washington Post reports. Since Donald Trump won the 2016 election, some Democrats have been blaming Russians for stealing the election.

The Russian agency, GRU, had successfully hacked an Android app created by the Ukrainian army to track their movements on the battlefield. Apparently, the Russian agency used the same tactics to compromise the DNC’s networks.

“The GRU is used for both tactical intelligence collection in the battlefield in support of Russian military operations and also strategic active measures or psychological warfare overseas,” said Alperovitch, who is an expert on Russia and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The fact that they would be tracking and helping the Russian military kill Ukrainian army personnel in eastern Ukraine and also intervening in the U.S. election is quite chilling.”

In its report last month, the CIA concluded that Russian hackers intervened with the purpose of making sure Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Wanting to investigate it further, President Obama has ordered a full review of the hack. He wants the report before he leaves office.