House Republican committee HACKED during 2018 election, emails stolen…

Officials are now admitting that the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee) was hacked during the 2018 election and that top emails were stolen by NRCC officials. They say it’s under investigation by the FBI:

POLITICO – The House GOP campaign arm suffered a major hack during the 2018 election, exposing thousands of sensitive emails to an outside intruder, according to three senior party officials.

The email accounts of four senior aides at the National Republican Congressional Committee were surveilled for several months, the party officials said. The intrusion was detected in April by an NRCC vendor, who alerted the committee and its cybersecurity contractor. An internal investigation was initiated and the FBI was alerted to the attack, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the incident.

However, senior House Republicans — including Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) — were not informed of the hack until POLITICO contacted the NRCC on Monday with questions about the episode. Rank-and-file House Republicans were not told, either.

Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), who served as NRCC chairman this past election cycle, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Committee officials said they decided to withhold the information because they were intent on conducting their own investigation, and feared that revealing the hack would compromise efforts to find the culprit.

In other words they were worried about leaking, which is quite understandable. It’s impressive they were able to keep it under wraps this long, considering the hack began in April.

“We don’t want to get into details about what was taken because it’s an ongoing investigation,” said a senior party official. “Let’s say they had access to four active accounts. I think you can draw from that.”

Party officials would not say when the hack began or who was behind it, although they privately believe it was a foreign agent due to the nature of the attack.

Donor information was not compromised during the intrusion, the party officials said.

“The NRCC can confirm that it was the victim of a cyber intrusion by an unknown entity. The cybersecurity of the Committee’s data is paramount, and upon learning of the intrusion, the NRCC immediately launched an internal investigation and notified the FBI, which is now investigating the matter,” said Ian Prior, a vice president at Mercury.

Prior, a former Justice Department official and NRCC operative, has been working with the committee to deal with the matter.

“To protect the integrity of that investigation, the NRCC will offer no further comment on the incident,” Prior added.

I would hope they were able to uncover the perpetrator by now. And if they suspect a foreign power, the first guess will be Russia.

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