The Democratic National Committee released a statement Tuesday condemning a new leak of its hacked documents and tying that hack to both Russia and Donald Trump.
Interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile charged in the statement that the only person to gain anything from these hacks would be Trump and his campaign. She also blasted his statements about cybercrime as “dangerous.”
“The DNC is the victim of a crime—an illegal cyberattack by Russian state-sponsored agents who seek to harm the Democratic Party and progressive groups in an effort to influence the presidential election,” the statement reads. “There’s one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that’s Donald Trump. Not only has Trump embraced Putin, he publicly encouraged further Russian espionage to help his campaign. Like so many of the words Trump has uttered this election season, his statements encouraging cybercrime are dangerous, divisive, and unprecedented.”
Hours before the DNC released the statement, Politico reported that someone speaking on behalf of the hacker Guccifer 2.0 at a hacker conference in London announced the release of internal documents about the DNC’s tech initiatives during vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine’s tenure as governor of Virginia, as well as spreadsheets that appear to contain donor information.
U.S. intelligence officials have said that Russian hackers are believed to be behind the hack of the DNC, as well as a cyberattack on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Read the statement in full below:
The DNC is the victim of a crime—an illegal cyberattack by Russian state-sponsored agents who seek to harm the Democratic Party and progressive groups in an effort to influence the presidential election. There’s one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that’s Donald Trump. Not only has Trump embraced Putin, he publicly encouraged further Russian espionage to help his campaign. Like so many of the words Trump has uttered this election season, his statements encouraging cybercrime are dangerous, divisive, and unprecedented.
We have been anticipating that an additional batch of documents stolen by Russian agents would be released. Our legal team is now in the process of reviewing these private documents, and attempting to confirm their authenticity, as it is common for Russian hackers to forge documents. We would urge anyone attempting to access these documents to proceed with extreme caution given the potential malware risks.
The DNC takes cybersecurity and privacy very seriously. Immediately after learning of the cyberattack, we retained a leading cybersecurity firm, Crowdstrike, to further secure the network and determine the scope of the intrusion. In early August, we created a Cybersecurity Advisory Board, composed of distinguished policy experts, to ensure that the DNC’s cyber capabilities are best-in-class. We will continue working to strengthen the security of our information and to cooperate with law enforcement authorities so that those responsible for this crime can be held accountable.
This post has been updated.
