NSA may be conducting cyber-attacks on Russian groups to determine if they were responsible for hacking DNC
Computer experts from the US National Security Agency (NSA) may be conducting cyber-attacks on Russian hacker groups to determine if they are responsible for the hacking of the US Democratic National Committee (DNC). ABC News reported this information on Saturday, July 30, citing three former senior US intelligence employees.
Robert Joyce, the head of the secret Tailored Access Operations, part of the NSA, told ABC News that the agency has sufficient technical capacity and the legal power to “crack back” at suspicious hackers to get into their system in order to collect information about their operations. “In terms of the foreign intelligence mission, one of the things we have to do is try to understand who did a breach, who is responsible for a breach… That’s hard work, but that’s one of the responsibilities we have,” he explained in an interview with ABC.
Rajesh De, the former NSA chief consultant, believes that in this case the special service may operate by the virtue of their competence, as the Russian government is “undoubtedly the target of the intelligence.” According to him, in such situations the NSA may act independently or provide technical support to the FBI, which is investigating the hacking of the DNC.
A former senior US official also said that it is likely that the NSA, using the technical skills of its hackers, is trying to hack into the computer systems of two Russian hacker teams, which, according to the experts on cyber security from the company Crowdstrike (hired by Democrats to investigate the hacking), had attacked the party committees and, as indicated by The Washington Post, have been associated with two different Russian special services.
Unidentified hackers recently conducted several massive attacks on US Democratic Party structures. In addition to the DNC, Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters were also attacked, as well as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). “The national security division of the Department of Justice is finding out whether hacker attacks directed against the political organizations of the Democratic Party threaten the security of the country,” a source in law enforcement said to Reuters. Earlier, US experts and politicians stated that hackers associated with Russia could be behind such incidents. Russian authorities have called these assumptions absurd.