Synnex, a contractor for the Republican Party, was allegedly hacked by the Russian military late last week in what is apparently the latest attack on U.S. entities during the Biden era.
The hackers reportedly did not hack the Republican Party’s system. Russian hackers have previously attempted to launch cyberattacks against the Republican National Committee and failed. Russian hackers have succeeded in attacking the Democrat National Committee in the past.
“Early indications were that the culprit was Russia’s S.V.R. intelligence agency,” The New York Times reported. “The R.N.C. attack was the second of apparent Russian origin to become public in the last few days, and it was unclear late Tuesday whether the two were related.”
RNC chief of staff Richard Walters told The Daily Wire in a statement that no data was accessed by the hackers and that the party is working with tech and federal law enforcement officials on the matter.
“Over the weekend, we were informed that Synnex, a third party provider, had been breached,” Walters said. “We immediately blocked all access from Synnex accounts to our cloud environment. Our team worked with Microsoft to conduct a review of our systems and after a thorough investigation, no RNC data was accessed. We will continue to work with Microsoft, as well as federal law enforcement officials on this matter.”
The Times added:
The twin attacks are a test for Mr. Biden just three weeks after he, in his first meeting as president with Mr. Putin, demanded that the Russian leader rein in ransomware activities against the United States. At the meeting, Mr. Biden said later, he presented Mr. Putin with a list of 16 critical sectors of the American economy that, if attacked, would provoke a response — though he was cagey about what that response would be. …
The newest attacks appeared to cross many lines that Mr. Biden has said he would no longer tolerate. On the campaign trail last year, he put Russia “on notice” that, as president, he would respond aggressively to counter any interference in American elections. Then in April, he called Mr. Putin to warn him about impending economic sanctions in response to the SolarWinds breach.
Biden has repeatedly struggled to answer questions about the attacks on U.S. entities that have occurred on his watch.
“I can tell you a couple things. I received an update from my national security team this morning,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday when pressed about the latest hacks. “It appears to have caused minimal damage to U.S. businesses, but we’re still gathering information to the full extent of the attack. And I’m gonna have more to say about this. In the next several days, we’re getting more detailed information. That’s what I can tell you now, and I feel good about our ability to, ugh…”
Biden then turned and left the press conference and did not answer questions on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin was testing him.