Leaked report details Russian ‘cyber espionage’ during US election campaign

Vladimir Putin insists he has not seen proof of Russian interference in the US election

A LEAKED US intelligence report reveals that Russian state actors attempted to hack systems connected to the US election.

The National Security Agency (NSA) report claims that Russian military intelligence “executed cyber espionage operations” against an American company “to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware”.

These operations were mostly unsuccessful, it said.

While individual accounts may have been compromised, the intelligence community in the US believes the election result was not.

It has repeated that “it would be extremely difficult for someone, including a nation-state actor, to alter actual ballot counts or election results by cyber attack or intrusion”.

While there has been no evidence of tampering with the ballot systems, Russia has been criticised for engaging in other forms of influence, including spreading disinformation.

A total of 17 intelligence agencies have asserted that Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian state security apparatus to intervene in the US elections on the side of Donald Trump.

In an interview on Sunday night, the Russian president responded in an irritated fashion to being questioned on whether his government had done so.

“I haven’t seen, even once, any direct proof of Russian interference in the presidential election in the United States,” he said.

However, the leaked report attributes the attack to the Main Intelligence Agency in Russia, known by the acronym GRU.

It suggested there was a specific team at GRU responsible for targeting the US, and for targeting foreign elections.

Yesterday, at the same time as the document was published by The Intercept, the US Department of Justice charged a government contractor with the leak.

Reality Leigh Winner, 25, was arrested by the FBI at her home for allegedly printing the document on her work PC and mailing it to a news outlet.

The Intercept, like most news outlets, discourages whistle-blowers from leaking documents from their work machines. Winner reportedly did not follow this advice.

The Department of Justice states that she admitted to the offences while the FBI searched her residence. – news.sky.com