NEWS BRIEF U.S. officials suspect the Russian government hacked into the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the second party organization to see a recent cyber attack. In a statement Friday, the DCCC—House Democrats’ campaign arm—confirmed the breach, which was first reported by Reuters on Thursday. “Based on the information we have to date, we’ve been advised by investigators that this is similar to other recent incidents,” namely, the prior infiltration of the Democratic National Committee’s email system.
U.S. officials had strongly suspected that the Russian government was involved in the DNC hack. That intrusion led to Wikileaks releasing thousands of emails from the committee’s staff, which seemed to show them favoring Hillary Clinton, and the resignation of party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. But they couldn’t confirm whether the hackers intended to influence the American election. This week’s revelation is sure to fuel suspicions that they did. “It’s definitely part of a much, much broader campaign that is yet to fully be publicly revealed,” a cybersecurity expert told The Washington Post. “It's part of a broader intelligence collection effort,” a source told Politico. “It's maybe an attempt to harvest credentials. ... It’s not an email grab like the DNC.”
