In contrast to earlier reports that Russian state-sponsored hackers penetrated a server to steal a database of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) research on Donald Trump, a singular hacker has claimed responsibility for the breach.
The significant cyberattack of a DNC server that resulted in the theft of the Democrats’ research of Donald Trump gets a twist. A “lone hacker”, as reported by Reuters, has claimed responsibility for the cyber attack.
Originally, DNC officials and CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm employed by DNC to investigate the breach, had claimed that Russian hackers backed by the country’s government breached DNC’s networks to spy on internal communications and steal research on Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
However, a singular hacker going by the alias Guccifer 2.0 took responsibility for the breach. In a post on WordPress.com, the hacker stated that the DNC was “hacked by a lone hacker.”
Related read: Russian State Sponsored Hackers Steal Democrats’ Research
The blog contained various images of documents that the poster claimed to have stolen from DNC servers. One document is found to be simply titled “Donald Trump Report,” dated December 19. The report includes spreadsheets of party donors.
While the documents aren’t independently verified yet, Guccifer 2.0 points to “thousands of files and mails” stolen from DNC servers, soon to be published on WikiLeaks.
Despite the hacker’s claims, CrowdStrike has come forward to issue a statement that it “stands fully by its analysis”, that identified two separate Russian intelligence affiliated hacking groups who were present in the DNC’s computer network. The security firm even speculates that the post may be a misdirection by the Russian intelligence to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the hack.
Whether or not this posting is part of a Russian Intelligence disinformation campaign, we are exploring the documents’ authenticity and origin. Regardless, these claims do nothing to lessen our findings relating to the Russian government’s involvement, portions of which we have documented for the public and the greater security community.
Beyond its forensic investigation of the breach, the firm is now reviewing documents published by Guccifer 2.0 in order to determine if they are authentic.
Image credit: Pixabay.
