Friday, December 9, 2016

Obama Orders Full Review of Election-Related Hacking


President Barack Obama has ordered a "Full Review" of hacking-relating activity aimed at disrupting last month's Presidential Election and he expects that report before he leaves office on Jan. 20th, a top White House official said Friday.

"We may have crossed into a new threshold and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned," Obama Counterterrorism and Homeland Security Adviser Lisa Monaco told reporters at a breakfast arranged by the Christian Science Monitor.

U.S. Intelligence officials have blamed the Russian Government for Pre-Election hacking of Democratic officials and Political Committees. Several Democratic Senators have asked Obama to declassify more details about the attacks and why the U.S. concluded the Russians were behind them.

Monaco would not commit to making the findings of the review public, but did say that it would be shared with "a range of stakeholders," including members of Congress. "That’s going to be first and foremost a determination that’s made by the intelligence community," she said. "We want to do so very attentive to not disclosing sources and methods that may impede our ability to identify and attribute malicious actors in the future."

Monaco struck an ominous tone about internet-related dangers, calling them among the most significant National Security issues facing the new Administration. Trump's team will "inherit a rapidly growing threat in this space across all dimensions," she said, including intrusions from both "hacktivists" and "criminal actors."

In the months leading up to the Election, hackers reportedly linked to Russia directed digital attacks on the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other political organizations. They also breached the personal email accounts of Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign Chairman John Podesta, and several Democratic staffers, with many of those emails being released publicly by WikiLeaks, causing unwelcome Pre-Election tumult for the Clinton Campaign.

But a small “portfolio” of roughly 300 emails from Republican targets, including purported emails from the Campaign staffs for Sen. John McCain, a 2008 Presidential hopeful, and Lindsey Graham, who briefly ran for President during this cycle. Both lawmakers are stalwart critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Also included in the dump are emails from 2012 GOP Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and GOP Party officials in several states.

If the hackers were indeed targeting high-level politicians from both Major Parties, that may complicate Hillary Clinton supporters’ narrative that Putin’s regime is tried to put Donald Trump in the White House.

None of the Republicans named in the leaks immediately responded to requests for comment. Email leaks do not necessarily mean that hackers have breached the GOP officials.

But other s think this is fake information, about the GOP hacking, by the Russians to muddy the waters.











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