Russians tried to hack Republican National Committee
Hackers associated with the Russian government gained access last week to a contractor for the Republican National Committee, the RNC said in a statement Tuesday.
The RNC said that its contractor Synnex had been hacked but added no access was gained to any RNC data.
"We immediately blocked all access from Synnex accounts to our cloud environment," said Richard Walters, the RNC's chief of staff. "Our team worked with Microsoft to conduct a review of our systems and after a thorough investigation, no RNC data was accessed. We will continue to work with Microsoft, as well as federal law enforcement officials on this matter."
The FBI said it "is aware of the incident and has no additional comment at this time."
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The news was first reported by Bloomberg.
The breach would be the second major cyberattack by a Russian network on the United States in recent days. A ransomware attack by the Russian-language REvil gang reportedly struck at least 200 U.S. companies over the weekend.
President Joe Biden said that attack did "minimal damage to U.S. businesses, but we're still gathering information."
Biden did not say whether the U.S. would retaliate for the attack, but he is expected to convene a meeting Wednesday with officials from the State, Justice and Homeland Security departments as well as leaders from the intelligence community on the U.S. strategy to counter ransomware attacks.
Biden met last month with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Geneva and said that he demanded the Kremlin rein in such activities against the United States. He later told reporters he presented Putin with a list of 16 critical sectors of the U.S. economy, which if targeted would provoke an American response.
"If, in fact, they violate these basic norms, we will respond with cyber,'' Biden said at the time.
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