After receiving a deluge of obscene voicemails and text messages, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi informed her fellow Democrats on Saturday of “an electronic Watergate break-in” and warned them not to allow family members to answer their phones or read incoming texts.
The breach targeted the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other Democratic Party entities, Pelosi said in a statement. As a result, a mix of personal and official information of Democratic members and hundreds of congressional staff, purportedly from a hack of the DCCC, was posted online, she said. Pelosi said she is changing her phone number and advised her colleagues to do the same.
A hacker who calls himself Guccifer 2.0 took credit for posting the information Friday night. He had claimed responsibility for the recent hack of Democratic National Committee emails, which roiled the Democratic National Convention last month. While Guccifer 2.0 has described himself as a Romanian hacker and denies working for Russia, online investigators assert that he is linked to Russia.
President Barack Obama said in late July that Russia may have been behind the leak of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails. Obama, who noted that outside experts have blamed Russia for the leak, suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin may have reason to facilitate the attack.
“Anything’s possible,” Obama told NBC News when asked whether Moscow was trying to influence the presidential election.
The FBI, which is investigating, hasn’t publicly attributed the attack to Russia. But Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign has, implying that the goal was to benefit Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Trump has rejected the allegation, insisting Democrats were trying to “deflect the horror and stupidity” of the leak.
Two US cybersecurity firms have said their analysis of computer breaches at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, showed detailed evidence that the intrusions were likely linked to Russian hackers. The internet domains and registrants used in the breach of computers used by the committee tied back to a Russian hacking group linked to that nation’s intelligence services. That same hacking group, known as “Fancy Bear,” was previously connected to the cyber breach at the Democratic National Committee.
