The Democratic National Committee filed court documents Thursday night in its lawsuit against the Trump campaign, Russia, and WikiLeaks, alleging Russian hackers targeted the organization again with spear phishing after the midterm elections.
The new complaint from the DNC's legal team does not contend that the president or his associates had any knowledge of the latest phishing attempts, but suggests that by initially denying now-reported contacts with Russia-linked figures, along with other behavior the DNC deems suspect, the Trump campaign showed itself to be part of a broader conspiracy with the Russian Federation.
On Nov. 14, the documents say, dozens of D.N.C. email addresses were on the receiving end of a so-called spearphishing campaign by one of two Russian organizations believed to be responsible for hacking into the committee’s computers during the 2016 presidential race. There is no evidence that the most recent attack was successful.
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The new court filings say the time stamps and contents of the spearphishing emails received in November were consistent with separate cyberattacks around the same time tied to the Russian hacking group known as Cozy Bear, one of the two Russian groups suspected of breaching D.N.C. computers in 2016.
Security researchers believe the hacking attempt against the D.N.C. in November was part of a broader campaign that used decoy emails that appeared to come from the State Department.
That campaign had more than a dozen targets, including government agencies, think tanks, law enforcement officials, journalists, military personnel, defense contractors, pharmaceutical companies and transportation officials, according to a report by the cybersecurity firm FireEye.
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FireEye said that although Cozy Bear was the likeliest culprit, the firm could not firmly establish who was responsible for the 2018 campaign against the D.N.C. and other targets. CrowdStrike, another cybersecurity firm, also noted an uptick in hacking activity in November, but it could not say definitively that Cozy Bear was to blame.
Cozy Bear, also known by security firms as APT 29 or the Dukes, was one of two Russian groups involved in the 2016 hacking of the D.N.C. It has not attracted the same scrutiny as the other group, Fancy Bear, or APT 28, which has been linked to a string of cyberattacks against the D.N.C., the International Olympic Committee and other international organizations.
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The D.N.C. says in the amended complaint that the November campaign was consistent with a continuing push by Russian hackers to target Democratic candidates and party leaders.
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On Friday, Geoffrey A. Graber, a D.N.C. lawyer, said the committee expected defendants named in the case to file another motion for dismissal soon.
The Russian government has consistently denied hacking the D.N.C. In a “statement of immunity” from Russia’s Ministry of Justice, Russian authorities argued that even if it were responsible for the hacking, such a “sovereign act” would be considered a “military action” protected by a 1976 law that offers some immunity from lawsuits regarding foreign governments’ actions in the United States.
The DNC's legal team told ABC News it hopes the court will deny the calls to dismiss the case and allow the case to move forward. The team said the DNC would then seek documentation including communications Trump campaign principles had with Russians and Russian intermediaries as a part of the discovery process.
D.N.C. Says It Was Targeted Again by Russian Hackers After ’18 Election (NYT)
DNC alleges it was targeted in phishing attack after midterms (ABC News)