FBI suspects Russia for the DNC email leak

The FBI, which is investigating how Democratic National Committee emails were leaked, is also probing whether Hillary Clinton and her aides were hacked as well, the New York Times said on Monday. The newspaper said it is not clear whether they were affected but the agency found traces of attempts to attack.

A statement from the FBI confirmed that "a compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously,” adding that it will continue the investigation to hold those who threaten cyberspace responsible. It is said to have investigated cyberattacks on DNC starting this spring. The New York Times said, citing an anonymous source, that the DNC did not cooperate with the agency and held an independent probe by hiring a private service provider.

A U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said that the hacked information has shown that they are from Russia without doubt, Reuters said on Monday. Private cybersecurity companies such as CrowdStrike, which conducted an independent investigation at the request by the DNC, and experts say in unison that Russia was behind.

“One leaked document included hyperlink error messages in Cyrillic, the result of editing the file on a computer with Russian language settings,” said Thomas Rid, a professor at King’s College in London and cyber specialist.

“The U.S. and Russia have continued to discuss cyber security,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a briefing on Monday. “I think we need to let the FBI do their work before we try to form any conclusions here about what happened and what the motivation was behind it.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told NBC news on Monday that there is no proof whatsoever. He said his organization did not identify sources, and the rumor that Russia was behind was a claim made by the Hillary Clinton camp to cause distractions.”

Experts were concerned about a new dimension of intelligence war. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said to The Washington Post, “(If the Russians were behind the leaks,) they’re clearly taking their game to another level. It would be weaponizing information.”

“While there is nothing new in one nation using its intelligence services to try to influence an election in another, doing so by hacking into a political party’s computers and releasing their emails does seem somewhat new,” Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School, said in a post on Lawfare.