House Dem campaign arm says it was hacked

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) on Friday confirmed reports that it had been hacked, saying the breach is similar to the one that hit the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

{mosads}”The DCCC can confirm that we have been the target of a cybersecurity incident,” spokeswoman Meredith Kelly said in a statement. “Upon discovering the issue, we immediately took action and engaged with CrowdStrike, a leading forensic investigator, to assist us in addressing this incident. 

“The investigation is ongoing,” she added. “Based on the information we have to date, we’ve been advised by investigators that this is similar to other recent incidents, including the DNC breach.”

Reuters reported on Thursday that the FBI had opened an investigation into a cyber intrusion at the DCCC.

The attack may have been an effort to steal information on Democratic donors, Reuters reported.

The news comes a week after Wikileaks published a trove of stolen emails from DNC officials. That leak led to the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz after some emails showed officials pondering ways to undermine Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign.

Many in the U.S. intelligence community believe that hackers linked to the Russian government were behind the DNC cyberattack, but Director of National Intelligence James Clapper cautioned on Thursday against jumping to conclusions.

“I don’t think we’re quite ready yet to make a call on attribution,” Clapper said at the Aspen Security Forum. “We all know there’s just a few usual suspects out there, but in terms of the process we try to stick to, I don’t think we’re ready to make a public call on that yet.”