Matt Picht
What Will Russia Do With Unreleased Hacked Data?
U.S. intelligence believes there's still material collected from hacks that hasn't been released.
LEARN MOREPosted: 9:48 p.m. EST Dec 29, 2016
As it slaps new sanctions on Russia, the Obama administration is also revealing more information on what it's calling "Grizzly Steppe" — Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 election.
A new report basically restates what other analyses have concluded: Two groups of hackers affiliated with Russia carried out a spearphishing campaign that compromised both the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Spearphishing campaigns send users specifically tailored messages to try to trick them into opening harmful links or files. The hackers used convincing-looking fake websites and emails to steal user credentials and install malware.
The report also lists several aliases, campaigns and malware associated with the hacker groups, as well as suspicious IP addresses, file hashes and malware signatures linked to the group.
That info is valuable for security workers looking to guard against intrusions, but it doesn't provide much concrete evidence that Russia was behind the attacks. The New York Times says a more detailed intelligence report attributing the attacks to Russia will be published in the next three weeks, though it's likely to be highly classified.
President-elect Donald Trump has remained skeptical of Russia's involvement but said Thursday he'll discuss the matter with intelligence officials in a briefing next week.
