RUSSIA’S INVASION INTO U.S. POLITICS
Indictment details how ‘spearphishing,’ malware and bitcoin were used against Democrats in 2016 election
WASHINGTON — The email landed in John Podesta’s crowded inbox around March 19, 2016, during the height of the presidential primaries, and it appeared to be a standard security request from Google for Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman to change his password.
Doing so ultimately led to a political firestorm that is still raging.
The email was actually from Aleksey Lukashev, a senior lieutenant in Russian military intelligence, using the account “john356gh” to mask his purpose, U.S. officials say. The email contained an embedded link that secretly opened Podesta’s account to a hacking team at 20 Komsomolskiy Prospekt, near Moscow’s Red Square.
Two days later, the Russian cyberthieves stole — and later leaked — more than 50,000 of Podesta’s private emails, incalculably undercutting Clinton’s bid for the White House.
On Friday, the Justice Department indicted Lukashev and 11 other officers in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, known as the GRU, for interfering in the 2016 presidential election by hacking and leaking tens of thousands of emails and other material from Clinton’s campaign, the [See Russia, A12]
Doing so ultimately led to a political firestorm that is still raging.
The email was actually from Aleksey Lukashev, a senior lieutenant in Russian military intelligence, using the account “john356gh” to mask his purpose, U.S. officials say. The email contained an embedded link that secretly opened Podesta’s account to a hacking team at 20 Komsomolskiy Prospekt, near Moscow’s Red Square.
Two days later, the Russian cyberthieves stole — and later leaked — more than 50,000 of Podesta’s private emails, incalculably undercutting Clinton’s bid for the White House.
On Friday, the Justice Department indicted Lukashev and 11 other officers in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, known as the GRU, for interfering in the 2016 presidential election by hacking and leaking tens of thousands of emails and other material from Clinton’s campaign, the [See Russia, A12]
