The FBI and Justice Department are investigating a computer hack of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in addition to its examination of intrusions of other Democratic Party organizations, two law enforcement officials said Friday.
The campaign said in a statement that its internal systems were not compromised.
“An analytics data program maintained by the DNC, and used by our campaign and a number of other entities, was accessed as part of the DNC hack,” said Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill. “Our campaign computer system has been under review by outside cyber security experts. To date, they have found no evidence that our internal systems have been compromised.”
The intrusion was discovered by private investigators hired by the campaign, according to one of the law enforcement officials. The private investigators believe it is similar to the Democratic National Committee hack, but federal investigators are still working to determine the scope and nature of the intrusion, the official explained.
The campaign intrusion is the latest in a series of Democratic party organizations who have had system breaches that are being investigated — including the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
The Justice Department’s national security division, which was already investigating the DNC intrusion, is handling the investigation because of the believed similarities, one of the officials explained.
There is strong evidence indicating the cyber intrusion of the DNC was the work of hackers working on behalf of Russian intelligence, US officials said this week.
The alleged intrusion was first reported by Reuters.
A person familiar with the Clinton campaign program described it as essentially a dynamic voter database — with voter participation, voter contact information and voter files that all campaign organizations use. It’s a list — but a dynamic one with key voter data.
A Clinton aide said the hackers had access to the analytics program’s server for approximately five days. The analytics data program is among many systems accessed to conduct voter analysis. It does not include social security numbers or credit card numbers.
The aide noted further that according to the campaign’s outside cyber security expert, the hack of this analytics data program could not have resulted in access to Clinton campaign internal emails, voicemails, computers or other internal communications and documents. Those are completely independent systems.
The DCCC, which is the political arm for House Democrats, confirmed Friday it had been the subject of a cyberhack, raising the possibility that alleged Russian hackers might have breached a much broader swath of Democratic records than originally thought.
The revelation comes just days after the leak of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails — US officials allege Russian hackers — prompted major turmoil within the party, causing the abrupt resignation of its chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.