U.S. raises second alarm over foreign hacking
U.S. agencies have again accused Russian-sponsored hackers of trying to break into dozens of U.S. government computer networks, and in two instances they were successful.
It's the second major warning over foreign hacking in as many days, and comes less than two weeks before the U.S. election.
FBI and Homeland Security officials said on Thursday (October 22) that since at least September, Russia state hackers had broken into an unspecified number of state and local computer networks, as well as aviation networks.
In two cases they stole data, but the FBI gave no further details and did not disclose the names of the targeted governments.
In a statement, the FBI said it was, 'shining a spotlight on Russia's nefarious behaviour.'
When asked for a comment, the Russian embassy in Washington pointed to recent remarks by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov:
"The accusations come every day, all of them have no grounds, they are not based on anything. Most likely, it is a tribute to internal political processes linked to the upcoming election."
This week's previous accusation came from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, who said that Russia and Iran have both tried to interfere with this year's presidential election.
"First, we have confirmed that some voter registration information has been obtained by Iran and separately by Russia. This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy."
Many in the U.S. are worried about a potential repeat of 2016 when hackers alleged to be working for Russia stole and released emails belonging to prominent U.S. Democrats.
