Microsoft Believes Russians That Hacked Clinton Targeted Biden Campaign Firm

Microsoft recently alerted one of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s main election campaign advisory firms that it had been targeted by suspected Russian state-backed hackers, according to four people briefed on the matter, Reuters reported.

The hacking attempts targeted staff at Washington-based SKDKnickerbocker, a campaign strategy and communications firm working with Biden and other prominent Democrats, over the past two months, the sources said.

Microsoft identified the suspected hacking group as the same set of spies blamed by the U.S. government for breaking into the campaign of Democratic former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and leaking the emails of her staff, two of the sources said.

The group, which many cyber researchers refer to as “Fancy Bear,” is controlled by the Russia’s military intelligence agency, according to reports from the U.S. intelligence community released after the 2016 election.

A person familiar with SKDK’s response to the attempts said the hackers failed to gain access to the firm’s networks. “They are well-defended, so there has been no breach,” the person said.

U.S. intelligence agencies have raised alarms about possible efforts by foreign governments to interfere in the November presidential election.

Investigations by former special counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate intelligence committee both concluded that affiliates of the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election to try to help Republican Donald Trump get elected. Mueller has warned that Russia was meddling in the current campaign.

The Biden campaign said it was aware Microsoft said a foreign actor had tried and failed to access “non-campaign email accounts of individuals affiliated with the campaign.”

Microsoft, which has shared with SKDK its assessment that Russian state-backer hackers targeted the firm, declined to comment.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the allegations as “nonsense.” Moscow has repeatedly denied using hacking to interfere in other countries’ elections.