The Plot to Hack America

More evidence of synchronicity was found on the same day that Trump visited Mexico and then lit a barn burner of a speech on immigration. That night Guccifer 2.0 released the documents “DCCC docs from [Nancy] Pelosi’s PC” with discussions on immigration, Black Lives Matters, and other items.⁴³

The New York Times had set a new editorial policy stipulating that anything Trump said needed fact checking. Editorial writer Charles Blow wrote an article suggesting that if you support Trump, you support racism.⁴⁴ Sure enough, within days the CYBER BEARS hacked the New York Times in what appears to be an attempt to gain information to discredit Blow and others. What it did was reveal that anyone who publically goes against Trump is subject to attack.

The Intelligence Professionals Weigh In

As the public has come to learn about more cyberattacks, numerous officials and cyber security experts have weighed in on the possibility of Russian interference on the 2016 election cycle. Numerous intelligence officials, government, and cyber security experts alike, weighed in on possible Russian involvement. They overwhelmingly agreed that though more evidence is needed, the CYBER BEARS paw prints are all over the hacks.

Reuters reported that the U.S. Department of Justice national security division was investigating the attacks as threats on U.S. national security. The FBI also said it was investigating the case and it was “aware of media reporting on cyber intrusions involving multiple political entities, and is working to determine the accuracy, nature and scope of these matters.”⁴⁵

While speaking at the Aspen Security Forum about the Clinton Campaign hacks, C.I.A. director John O. Brennan didn’t point any fingers to Russia, but said, “obviously, interference in the U.S. election process is a very, very serious matter, and I think certainly this government would treat it with great seriousness.”⁴⁶

The U.S. government has not yet officially named any culprits, but the general consensus is that Russia is behind the hacks. “The consensus that Russia hacked the DNC is at this point very strong, albeit not unanimous,” said cybersecurity consultant Matt Tait. “The consensus that Russia hacked the DNC in support of Trump is, by contrast, plausible, but something for which the jury at this stage is very much still out.”⁴⁷

President Obama also said “anything’s possible” to NBC, since Russian hackers “on a regular basis, they try to influence elections in Europe.”⁴⁸

Yahoo! News reported August 15 that state polling systems had been hacked by foreign agencies. The FBI sent out an internal “flash” alert from the FBI’s Cyber division saying that state polling systems had potentially been hacked by Russian state-sponsored hackers, aimed at disrupting the November elections. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson held a conference call with state elected officials to offer his department’s services. Johnson said there were no “specific or credible cybersecurity threats” to the election, but three days later, the FBI released a memo titled “Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems.” It revealed that the bureau is investigating attacks on two state election websites this summer that resulted in the theft of voter registration data.⁴⁹

The memo didn’t directly name any particular states, but Yahoo! News sources claim Arizona and Illinois were affected. In Illinois, officials were forced to shut down the state’s voter registration system for ten days in late July, after hackers downloaded personal data on at least 200,000 state voters, according to Ken Menzel, the general counsel of the Illinois Board of Elections. The Arizona attack wasn’t as serious; the virus injected into the voter registration system wasn’t successful in stealing data.

“The FBI is requesting that states contact their Board of Elections and determine if any similar activity to their logs, both inbound and outbound, has been detected,” the alert said. “Attempts should not be made to touch or ping the IP addresses directly.”