Russians hackers nab Democrats’ research on Trump

Russian government hackers have managed to slip the firewalls protecting the Democratic National Committee’s computer network, obtaining access to all the opposition’s research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to party officials.

The hackers were so successful in their endeavor that they gained access to all email and chat records, DNC officials and security experts told the Washington Post, which first reported the incident.

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called the incident “serious” and said the committee moved quickly to “kick out the intruders and secure our network.”

The chairwoman said the DNC reached out to the cyber firm CrowdStrike to help with the hack.

The DNC says financial and personal information does not appear to have been accessed by the hackers.

A Russian Embassy spokesperson told the Washington Post that he had no knowledge of any such cyber attacks, but security officials said some of the hackers had access to the DNC network for approximately a year.

As part of a major computer cleanup operation within the DNC, all hackers leeching on to the network were recently expelled, according to the security experts.

The DNC hack is just one of several recent cyber attacks on American political institutions aimed at gathering information on key figures connected to the presidential race, US officials told the Post.

The computer networks of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were targeted by Russian hackers, in addition to the computers of some GOP political action committees, the officials said.