Political group launched by Bernie Sanders hit by hack: report

A nonprofit group launched by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) lost almost a quarter of a million dollars in 2016 from an email scam, Politico reported Thursday, citing tax documents it obtained.

Our Revolution, a political action group that supports Sanders, reported a loss of $242,000 from a “Business E-Mail Compromise scam” that occurred in December 2016 and was discovered in January 2017, according to the news outlet. 

The money was reportedly transferred electronically to an account overseas.

{mosads}That type of email scam is a common occurrence in which hackers break into a computer network and make what looks like an authentic wire transfer request, the FBI has said, Politico noted. 

The news outlet added that Our Revolution said in tax forms that it worked with the FBI, its attorneys and a consultant in an effort to find the hackers and recover the money.

“Unfortunately, these efforts were unsuccessful,” the group said. 

The money lost amounted to about 7 percent of all the funds the group raised in 2016, according to Politico. That money had specifically been raised to help the Standing Rock Sioux Native American tribe as it protested against the construction of a controversial pipeline, former board member Lucy Flores told the news outlet.

Our Revolution decided to give the tribe the same amount of money that it had raised and “take the loss as an organization,” Flores added.

In its tax forms, the political action group reportedly placed the blame for losing the money on “an international syndicate of cyber-thieves targeting nonprofit organizations globally.” It added that it “continues to put into place additional safeguards, including both technical and human security measures, procedures and protocols.”