WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States watched Russians hack France’s computer networks during the election and tipped off French officials before it became public, a U.S. cyber official told the Senate on Tuesday.
France’s election campaign commission said Saturday that “a significant amount of data” — and some fake information — was leaked on social networks following a hacking attack on centrist Emmanuel Macron’s successful presidential campaign. France’s government cybersecurity agency is investigating what a government official described as a “very serious” breach.
The leak came 36 hours before the nation voted Sunday in a crucial presidential runoff between Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. The election commission said the leaked data apparently came from Macron’s “information systems and mail accounts from some of his campaign managers” — an attack that mimicked Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee in last year’s U.S. presidential election.
“We had become aware of Russian activity. We had talked to our French counterparts and gave them a heads-ups — ‘Look, we’re watching the Russians. We’re seeing them penetrate some of your infrastructure. Here’s what we’ve seen. What can we do to try to assist?'” Adm. Mike Rogers told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He said the U.S. also is working closely with German and British counterparts.
Rogers also said the U.S. is still working on a comprehensive cyber policy to counter what he called a “brave new world” in the cyber domain. He said the United States is improving its ability to defend against cyberattacks, but “I would also tell myself, Rogers you are not moving fast enough.”
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Vive La France, bragging rights forever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkZir1L7fSY2 weeks ago, he made the deal. I honor it.
This is a story that’s going to be buried, not only in America media in general, but sites like here. Which is sad because it shows how vigilance AND a media that doesn’t go to the lowest common denominator for sensationalism can protect democracy.
Also this explains how Macron was able to immediately respond in the short window he had, before he was legally muzzled due to French Election rules, and say the Russians implanted forged documents into the document dump. To be fair, he didn’t elude to Russian interference, but this connect the dots only has 2 dots.
How do you figure the story is being buried on TPM? You saw it here and you commented on it here. I’d bet a small sum that Rachel Maddow will be spreading the word on this tonight.
I expect that avoiding Russian interference will prove to be difficult if not impossible. What is important is being able to respond to it quickly and minimize its impact.
Just look at the attention it’s receiving from an optics standpoint Stadi. It’s like Bill Maher’s analogy about the Trump administration being like a swarm of bees, you’re going to miss stuff trying to deal with all their crap. Plus it’'s foreign affairs, people don’t really have the attention span for anything other watching video of the US bombing another country when it comes to that.
Also doesn’t help at AP’s site that the article is at the bottom and the moment another technology aritcle is published it will get bumped from the front page.
It’s up to people like you bring this to people’s attention, since it doesn’t have the legs to get out in the public alone.
I sincerely hope Democrats have had and will continue to have discussions and training sessions about how to protect their campaigns going forward. Were it up to me they’d treat their email as if the American people were standing over them reading each and every one. It’s time to go old school. Anything important or that could result in the slightest raised eyebrow should be said over the phone.