The Plot to Hack America

After CrowdStrike technicians implanted analytical software into the structure of the DNC’s servers, they soon discovered that two unknown entities had made an unauthorized penetration of the committee’s computers. The technicians immediately recognized that this was not a nuisance attack; it was a professional hit using professional tools and software. The CrowdStrike team started a series of analytical tests to discover the methods of entry and to outline the pathways that the hackers took into the server system. The tests would allow the cyber sleuths to determine where the hackers went, what they did while inside, and what data they may have taken. Another team checked the DNC’s server logs to see what the hackers had manipulated out of parameter. All of the parameters of the hack would take weeks to lay out in an official report, but it was almost immediately clear that this was not the work of amateur hackers.

Once inside, the two unauthorized users had started rooting around. One entity had implanted itself and had been monitoring the emails and chats of the Democratic staff for months, stealing files, emails, and voice messages—almost everything. The second entity, seemingly operating independently, had targeted two very specific files.

The treasure in political espionage is to know precisely what your enemy knows about you. Every intelligence agency seeks to find the details of the inner management of their opposition, but finding the file summary of what they actually know, what they don’t know and—equally important—what they know that they don’t know, is intelligence gold. For the political season of 2016, the most highly-prized information in the DNC’s servers would be the opposition files held by the Democratic Party about the seventeen Republican Party’s candidates.

The CrowdStrike damage control team determined that the penetration operation conducted by the unknown hackers had left the servers of the Democratic Party severely compromised. They had copied or taken materials of all kinds, and had infiltrated virtually everything of value to a political opponent: personal file folders, official chat threads, digital voicemails, and the email content of virtually everyone’s mailbox. The hackers also obtained the DNC’s donors lists, and it is likely that the donors’ credit card information was associated with these lists. One of the more fascinating aspects about this attack is that it was bold and brazen; many cyber security experts are a little surprised at how the hackers didn’t cover their tracks deeply, as if they wanted to be discovered. There was just enough cover to be deniable, but as one expert observed, it was a “big cyber F-you.” It was an electronic equivalent of a looting where the perpetrators throw everything around on the floor just to let you know they were there.

CrowdStrike quickly determined that the penetration into the servers started in the summer of 2015. Hand in hand with the successful penetration the next year, it would appear that the older attempt was an exploratory operation to determine the security settings on the server’s network. This probe would lay the groundwork for the determined and focused 2016 attack. However one factor was unshakable; the timeline of the 2016 hacks on the computers of the Democratic National Committee clearly indicated that the collection and dissemination was timed to benefit only the opposition Republican Party. Worse, if the hack was truly malicious, even relatively innocent information such as personal discussions, preferences, and the rivalry or relationships among co-workers could be twisted and injected into the national conversation in the months leading up to the election. This was not lost on the Chairperson of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She knew that scandal or not, the Republicans would use the hacked information to attack.

The Republican Party has shown an uncanny proclivity for taking an innocuous subject and by dint of repetition, inference, and outright false accusation make a seemingly innocent remark turn into years of acrimonious investigations. When Democratic staffers removed the letter “W” from a couple of Old Executive Office building computer keyboards, the Republicans turned it into a national campaign about how the White house itself was horribly vandalized by hordes of Democrats. When the staff at the White House travel office was routinely replaced upon the arrival of the freshly sworn-in President Bill Clinton, the scandal machine turned it into a witch hunt of national proportions that led to congressional investigations over abuse of power and personally targeted the First Lady. It’s been joked that had George Washington confessed to cutting down the cherry tree in the modern era, he would have been investigated for destruction of government property and abuse of authority, and promptly impeached.