After the White House accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of direct involvement in the Russian hacking of United States presidential elections, US President Barack Obama has said that America would retaliate against the hacking.
NBC on Wednesday reported the direct involvement of Putin's administration in the hacking a few days after The Washington Post reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had concluded in a secret assessment that Russia was intervening in the US elections and was attempting to assist Republican candidate Donald Trump win the presidency.
The Russian efforts reportedly included hacking emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairperson John Podesta. The emails were later provided to WikiLeaks, which made them public.
"I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action. And we will, at a time and place of our own choosing," Obama told NPR radio.
Putin had favoured Trump in the US elections, calling him "bright and talented." The Russian President, however, was against Clinton's candidacy and considered her as a Russian foe, who incited protests in the nation after the 2011 Russian elections. The US President-elect Trump also shares a favourable relationship with the Russian leader.
"I don't think things happen in the Russian government of this consequence without Vladimir Putin knowing about it. Everything we know about how Russia operates and how Putin controls that government would suggest that, again, when you're talking about a significant cyber intrusion like this, we're talking about the highest levels of government," one of Obama's top advisers, Ben Rhodes, told MSNBC television on Thursday.
Russian hackers tried targeting Republican National Committee
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Russia hackers also attempted to target security defences of the Republican National Committee (RNC) computer networks. However, only a single email account associated with a retired RNC staffer was targeted in the breach, WSC reported citing unnamed sources.
The report state that the hackers had sent phishing emails to an email address at the RNC last spring, but they were sorted out by a span detecting filter.
According to the Journal, analysts now believe what began as a data-gathering campaign aimed at both parties later focused on leaked emails about Hillary Clinton and Democrats. One of the RNC staff members reportedly said that they did not realise that they had been targeted by Russian spies until June, when the Democratic National Committee revealed the email breach.
