It Looks Like the DNC Hackers Also Plundered the Clinton Foundation

The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation is among the organizations breached by suspected Russian government-sponsored cyber spies in the lead up to the November election.

Government investigators witnessed unauthorized activity on the foundation’s computers as recently as the week of June 12. Agents often monitor servers that hackers use to communicate with their targets, giving them a back channel view of attacks, often even before the victims detect them.

The hackers had been seeking data from at least 4,000 individuals associated with U.S. politics for about seven months through mid-May. Those targets include party aides, advisers, lawyers and foundations.

"The thefts set the stage for what could be a Washington remake of the public shaming that shook Sony in 2014, when thousands of inflammatory internal e-mails filled with gossip about world leaders and Hollywood stars were made public," Bloomberg reports. 

Already, donor information and opposition research on Trump purportedly stolen from the Democratic Party has surfaced online, and the culprit has threatened to publish thousands more documents.

A hacker or group of hackers on June 21 posted what they said was a list of donors who had made large contributions to the Clinton Foundation.

The breadth of the attacks and the government warnings raise new questions about whether the campaigns have done enough to protect their systems.

The Clinton campaign was aware as early as April that it had been targeted by hackers with links to the Russian government on at least four recent occasions.

Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin said that the campaign had no evidence that its systems were compromised.

The hackers’ links to the Russian government were first identified by CrowdStrike Inc., working for the Democratic Party.

A law firm reviewing the DNC’s initial findings, Baker & McKenzie, has begun working with three additional security firms -- FireEye Inc., Palo Alto Networks Inc. and Fidelis Cybersecurity -- to confirm the connection.