Group Warns State Democratic Chairs of Hacking Risks

Hacking has been a serious issue during the 2016 election, and this week a group representing Democrats at the state level gave its members a heads-up that they may be targeted.

According to a Wednesday Politico report  (opens in a new tab), the Association of State Democratic Chairs warned its members that officials around the country had been hacked or were being impersonated. The culprit—according to an ASDC letter to members that was acquired by Politico—was malware on the WikiLeaks website, which in recent weeks has published leaked data from the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

This week, WikiLeaks added 670 megabytes of additional DNC data  (opens in a new tab) acquired by the hacker collective Guccifer 2.0, including information on Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), the current vice presidential candidate who led the DNC between 2009 and 2011.

“Due to the potential of malware attached to the site, we are under advisement from [interim DNC] Chair [Donna] Brazile to stay away in the interest of maintaining some security,” Buckley wrote in the letter, titled “Security Alert: Please Do Not Search WikiLeaks!”

Brazile, whose predecessor, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL),  left her post  (opens in a new tab) after revelations of a prior leak, blamed the latest incident on the Russian government  (opens in a new tab) and suggested it was an “effort to influence the presidential election.”

Buckley, the current head of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, may speak from experience on the hacking risk. On Tuesday, Politico reported  (opens in a new tab) that Buckley posted on his Facebook page Monday that his Twitter account had been hacked, though he later took that post down.

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