The hacker Guccifer 2.0 is remaining mum about any possible involvement in breaches of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
In prior communications with The Hill, the hacker or hackers known as Guccifer 2.0 claimed credit for leaking documents from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), including the emails that led to the resignation of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) as the organization’s chairwoman.
{mosads}The hacker has not responded to queries about the attack on the DCCC networks, announced Thursday night, or the breach of the Clinton campaign, which was revealed late Friday.
On Friday morning, the DCCC confirmed a hack “similar to other recent incidents, including the DNC breach.” The night before, Reuters reported sources saying the attack on the campaign committee for House Democrats “may be related.”
Guccifer 2.0 has claimed to be an apolitical, Romanian hacker. But the attacks’ similarity to known Russian tactics has raised questions about Guccifer 2.0’s nationality and claim to be a one-man operation.
The hacker has struggled to demonstrate he knows Romanian, his supposed native language. He uses an anonymity service known as a VPN that would have required him to know Russian to sign up, a language he claims not to know.
The malware, encryption certificates and servers used to relay commands and take data in the attacks on the DNC matched that of other attacks attributed to Russian agencies. Another hack linked to the DNC breach was of the German Parliament.
The evidence of Russian involvement had gotten so overwhelming that, by Thursday, a U.S. official told Reuters, “either these guys were incredibly sloppy, in which case it’s not clear that they could have gotten as far as they did without being detected, or they wanted us to know they were Russian.”
Some have speculated that Russia is seeking to influence the presidential election, perhaps to boost the candidacy of Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Russia has used signals intelligence to influence elections before, said Singer, just not in the United States. And, though the aim may be nothing more than creating chaos, a preference for Trump is in line with what he has seen on state-run Twitter accounts.
“We’ve seen them posing as Trumpians,” he said, “but also as [Bernie] Sanders supporters, attacking other candidates to create chaos.”
But it is not impossible to imagine a lone-wolf Guccifer 2.0 hacking two closely related networks. In fact, hacking one would mean being able to tamper with or fabricate emails and files being sent from one to another.
Guccifer 2.0 had not shied away from conversations with The Hill in the past. When he took credit over electronic chat for the leak of thousands of DNC emails, Guccifer 2.0 apologized for the increased workload he was thrusting upon journalists, followed by a string of emojis to signify he was laughing so hard he was crying.
But the signals from U.S. intelligence officials that they suspect Russian involvement in the hacks may have changed the hacker’s strategy.
“Instead of the U.S. playing along, you saw the attacks start being attributed to Russia,” said Dave Aitel, founder and chief technology officer of the security firm Immunity Inc. “Once the intelligence community weighs in, the ruse is up.”