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Gidwani believes that the Russian hack may have initially been intended for low-level intel that could be used to support Russian narratives about the U.S., but morphed into an attempt to influence the U.S. “Guccifer 2.0 has been part of a Russian denial and deception program,” said Toni Gidwani, director of research operations at ThreatConnect on a conference call today. The idea that a non-governmental actor pursuing a personal political agenda could hack the DNC and potentially sway an election is bad enough, an act of cyberwarfare by a foreign state is arguably much worse. But ThreatConnect’s research suggests that Guccifer 2.0 is simply an invention of the Russian government to deflect attention from its involvement in the breach. Now that DNC emails harvested during the breaches are starting to appear on Wikileaks, pundits are speculating that Russia leaked the emails in a bid to land Donald Trump in the Oval Office. But is the email leak also attributable to hackers on Russia’s government payroll?Ī new analysis released by security consulting firm ThreatConnect has marshaled more evidence to prove that hackers linked to the Russian government communicated with journalists about the leaked documents.Ī hacker set up a website and Twitter account to take credit for the DNC breach soon after it was initially reported, calling himself Guccifer 2.0 (a moniker modeled after a Romanian hacker who is recently pleaded guilty to hacking American political operatives). That claim shed doubt on initial reports from The Washington Post and others that laid the responsibility for the breach squarely at the feet of organizations with ties to the Russian government and its president, Vladimir Putin. By now, it’s pretty clear that Russian hackers are responsible for breaches of the Democratic National Committee networks that occurred last summer and in April of this year - several forensic security firms have found evidence that traces the breach back to Russia.