Three candidates claiming seats in the US Congress were subjected to hacker attacks, Microsoft said.. According to information of firms specializing in cyber security, traces of hackers lead to Russia.
Vice president of security company Tom Burt at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado said that candidates were victims of phishing.
Interim elections in the US will be held on November 6. A new composition of the House of Representatives will be elected, as well as 35 senators out of 100. In addition, 39 governors of states and territories are reelected, and in some states other local elections are held.
According to Burt, the attacks were using fake Microsoft domains.
A group of hackers who used these domains is known as Fancy Bear, but in Microsoft it is called Strontium.
Cyber ??security specialists from companies such as SecureWorks and Mandiant claim that Fancy Bear is backed by Russian authorities.
Bert did not name the names of the candidates who were subjected to hacker attacks, but noted that they are all of interest from the point of view of espionage. He added that the attacks were unsuccessful, and fake Microsoft domains are already disabled.
Cyber ??security specialist, University of Surrey professor Alan Woodward believes that hackers tried to access the correspondence of politicians.
"If you have e-mails, you can make sure that their authors look bad," he said.. "I think that the main task was the sabotage of democratic processes, so it is not so important which candidates to discredit the".
At the summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, US President Donald Trump said "no" in response to a question about whether, in his opinion, Russia continues to interfere in the American elections.
Later, his press secretary Sarah Sanders disavowed this response, saying that the president meant that he did not intend to answer further questions from journalists.
Last week, US National Intelligence Director Dan Coates said that Russian hacker attacks are permanent, regardless of the election.
"All intelligence services without exception, including the British, said that these attacks do not stop, that the offensive is going on in all directions, and all signs indicate that this is Russia," said Professor Woodward.
Source: BBC News.