Whoever did this, U.S. says of latest hacks, we’re coming after you | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Top White House and Justice Department officials asked for patience from the public Wednesday as they refused to say whether Russia or another nation may be behind a new series of headline-grabbing hacks affecting the realms of politics and sports.

But they promised that the hacks will not go unpunished – once they are certain who is responsible for them.

“Whether you are a rogue hacker or a uniformed soldier, the shadowy corners of the internet will not provide respite for long,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.

A top Lynch deputy, John P. Carlin of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said the Obama administration would go after whoever was responsible, even if they were operating as part of a foreign government’s institutions.

“The message should be clear: You are not safe because you are operating under another nation’s flag,” Carlin said. “We can figure out who did it. It won’t remain anonymous.”

The warnings came as the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, Donna Brazile, blamed agents in Russia for the release of new hacked DNC documents that she said were intended to influence the outcome of November’s presidential election.

“There’s one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that’s Donald Trump,” Brazile said in a statement. “Not only has Trump embraced (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, he publicly encouraged further Russian espionage to help his campaign.”

Whoever hacked the DNC, an act first reported in June, provided some 20,000 internal DNC emails to WikiLeaks, which released them a month later. The hack has fueled concern that foreign cyber-agents might also meddle directly in the November U.S. election.

Earlier this week, the World Anti-Doping Agency reported that its database had been penetrated by a Russian espionage group, known as Fancy Bear, that released information on four U.S. athletes – gymnast Simone Biles, tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, and basketball player Elena Delle Donne. The confidential medical data showed that the four had used medicines that usually are banned but that may be used with approval from the International Olympic Committee to treat certain medical conditions. All four had received permission.

Hundreds of Russian athletes were barred from competing in last month’s Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro due to suspicions of widespread doping.

Lisa O. Monaco, President Barack Obama’s top aide on homeland security and counterterrorism, declined to blame Russia for the latest hacks but said finger-pointing would come soon enough.

“Folks should stay tuned,” Monaco said at a forum at the Center for Strategic & International Studies to honor the Justice Department’s Division of National Security.

“We know Russia is a bad actor in cyberspace, just as China has been, just as Iran has been,” Monaco said. “Nobody should think that there is a free pass when you’re conducting malicious cyber-activity.”

“Our reach is long,” added Monaco, a former assistant attorney general. “Sometimes it takes a long time to build a case but it doesn’t deter us from pursuing it.”

Lynch noted that U.S. prosecutors in 2014 had charged five members of China’s People’s Liberation Army with hacking U.S. companies to benefit Chinese industry. Last year, prosecutors charged seven Iranians, allegedly linked to the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with planning to hack U.S. banks and a New York State dam in an attempt to disrupt its operation.

Before the indictments of the Chinese army members, Carlin said, few thought the U.S. government would seriously go after hackers linked to foreign governments.

“There was a period of time when folks said, ‘Cyber-espionage, Chinese espionage, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s too hard. They’re going to be able to remain anonymous, and this is just the world we have to accept as the status quo,’ ” Carlin said.

But he said indictments against foreign hackers had proved otherwise.

“For those who think that, be it Russia or any other country, that there’s going to be a free pass, that we can’t figure out what they are doing in cyber-enabled espionage, the message should be clear,” he said.