FBI investigating hacks of Democratic official's phones

Reuters has an exclusive report today indicating that the FBI is now looking into suspected hacks of phones belonging to Democratic party officials:

FBI agents had approached a small number of Democratic Party officials to discuss concerns their mobile phones may have been compromised by hackers, people involved said. It was not clear how many people were targeted by the hack or whether they included members of Congress, a possibility that could raise additional security concerns for U.S. officials.

If they were successful, hackers could have been able to acquire a wide range of data from targeted cell phones, including call data, text messages, emails, photos and contact lists, one person with knowledge of the situation said…

The FBI has asked some of those whose phones were believed to have [been] hacked to turn over their phones so that investigators could “image” them, creating a copy of the device and related data.

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No one is commenting about the hacks on the record. The FBI and the DNC said nothing while the Clinton campaign said it was unaware of the situation.

Despite the official silence, the suggestion from this story is that this is yet another hack connected to the intrusion at the DNC and the DCCC. The FBI is also investigating hacks of the NY Times and the Clinton Foundation.

All of the hacks are believed to have been carried out by Russian hackers, possibly with state approval. Reuters reported earlier this month that the FBI was trying to build a case against the hackers believed responsible but that’s a long shot under the circumstances.

An unnamed intelligence source told Reuters earlier this month, “Putin’s real objective here, the best we can tell at this point, is not simply to promote one candidate or another or to throw the election, but to discredit the very concept of Western democracy.”

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