Hillary Clinton’s campaign was reportedly breached as part of a widepsread cyberattack on Democrats, Reuters reported Friday.
Clinton is the latest casualty in a hack that targeted the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, both involved in electing Democratic cadidates to office.
Clinton’s campaign did not respond to an immediate request for comment, according to Reuters. According to CNN, the hack was discovered by private investigators hired by the campaign.
A federal law enforcement official told the New York Times that the attack appeared “to have come from Russia’s intelligence services.”
The FBI said in a statement it is investigating the latest potential hack.
“The FBI is aware of media reporting on cyber intrusions involving multiple political entities, and is working to determine the accuracy, nature and scope of these matters. The cyber threat environment continues to evolve as cyber actors target all sectors and their data,” the FBI said. “The FBI takes seriously any allegations of intrusions, and we will continue to hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.”
Evidence collected thus far on the DNC hack indicates Russia was responsible, although the motive is not clear. Democratic officials have speculated Russian President Vladimir Putin was attempting to meddle in U.S. elections, possibly with the hope of tipping the election in favor of Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has spoken favorably of Putin.
Emails from the hack were released last weekend, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, and showed the party committee had been biased towards Clinton over rival Sen. Bernie Sanders when it is supposed to be neutral.
Earlier Friday, Reuters reported the DCCC, which works to elect Democratic candidates to the House, was also targeted. The FBI is also investigating that incident.
Spokeswoman Meredith Kelly said the congressional campaign committee is using CrowdStrike Inc., a computer security firm based in Irvine, Calif., and is “cooperating with the federal law enforcement with respect to their ongoing investigation.”
Russia has denied involvement with the security breaches.
Computer hacking, emails and indications of Russian involvement have evolved into a political issue in the presidential campaign between Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump.
This week, Trump encouraged Russia to seek and release more than 30,000 other missing emails deleted by Clinton, the former secretary of state. Democrats accused him of trying to get a foreign adversary to conduct espionage that could affect this November’s elections, but Trump later said he was merely being sarcastic.
Clinton deleted the emails from her private server, saying they were private, before handing other messages over to the State Department. The Justice Department declined to prosecute Clinton over her email practices, though FBI Director James Comey called her “extremely careless” in handling classified information.
CrowdStrike and another security firm, ThreatConnect Inc. of Arlington, Va., said they found evidence pointing to Russian government involvement in the DNC hack when they analyzed the hackers’ methods and efforts to distribute the stolen emails and other files. The hacker groups, identified by CrowdStrike as Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, used different but sophisticated techniques to break into the DNC and try to avoid detection. Most of the DNC emails appeared to have been stolen May 25.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.