A group of Russian hackers accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections have launched an attack on the U.S. Democratic Party again. This was announced on Friday, October 30, by Reuters, citing sources familiar with the situation.
According to the agency's interlocutors, the organizer was the Fancy Bear group, which, according to Reuters, is controlled by the main directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (a body of Russian military intelligence, better known as the GRU). It is noted that the targets of the attacks, undertaken in the summer of 2020, were the branches of the US Democratic Party in the states of Indiana and California, as well as think tanks in New York and Washington.
For example, the Center for American Progress, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Washington Carnegie Endowment for International Peace were attacked by hackers. At the same time, both these organizations and the branches of the Democratic Party stated that the actions of the attackers were not crowned with success.
As noted by Reuters, Microsoft experts drew attention to the activity of hackers last summer: according to their data, some cybercriminals tried to hack more than 200 organizations, many of which are in one way or another connected with the presidential elections of 2020. According to the agency, Microsoft was able to establish that Fancy Bear was involved in the attacks. However, the company refused to confirm this information to Reuters. The scale of the hackers' actions has not yet been precisely established, the agency said.
In September, it was reported that hackers, ostensibly acting on behalf of the Russian state, attempted to undermine the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. It was noted that the victims of the hack were employees of the firm SKDKnickerbocker, which leads the strategy and communications of Biden's headquarters, and also serves other prominent Democrats.
Russia has been repeatedly accused of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. American journalists and officials claimed that “Russian hackers” had stolen Democratic correspondence and published it on the Internet, and also tried to infiltrate the electronic counting system.
