Interview with Reporter About Russian Cyber-Hacking

Eric Lipton, New York Times reporter, was interviewed today by Robin Young, host of the public radio show “Here and Now” from WBUR in Boston. Lipton, with colleagues David E. Sanger and Scott Shane, wrote the story published yesterday in the New York Times –

"The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S."

The article details a series of missteps by the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that led to a hack by operatives of the Russian government, who stole information stored on the DNC computer server, and subsequent release of the information on Wikileaks and other websites.

An FBI agent contacted the DNC in September of 2015 to let them know that their computer systems had been compromised by hackers. Because the technical support contractor who received the call believed that the caller was an impostor, he ignored the repeated phone calls from the FBI agent. Ultimately, it took nearly 7 months before the hack was dealt with, which was enough time for confidential files to have been used against the Democratic presidential candidate, and many candidates in Congressional contests in states with narrow margins. The Central Intelligence Agency has now declared with confidence that the Russian government used cyber-hacking to attempt to sway the 2016 elections.

The New York Times article explains:

“The low-key approach of the F.B.I. meant that Russian hackers could roam freely through the committee’s network for nearly seven months before top D.N.C. officials were alerted to the attack and hired cyberexperts to protect their systems. In the meantime, the hackers moved on to targets outside the D.N.C., including Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, whose private email account was hacked months later.”

John Podesta’s email was hacked in March 19, when a “phishing” email  was sent to Podesta asking him to change his password. After consulting with a campaign aide, he opened it, exposing 60,000 emails to hackers. These emails were used to embarrass the Clinton campaign, and the CIA is now confident that this was done by the same hackers, with the intention of playing havoc with the U.S. presidential election.

The 11-minute interview from “Here and Now” is available at the link below.
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/12/14/russia-election-hack

​The New York Times article by Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane is available above and also at the link below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html?_r=0