The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) was reportedly targeted by cyberattacks during the 2018 election, according to a new report.
The NRCC first discovered the attack in April and alerted the FBI upon discovering that the intrusion caused four senior aides’ email accounts to be compromised for several months, committee officials told Politico in an exclusive report on Tuesday.
The incident had been kept hidden until this week.
Politico says it reached out to Republican Reps. Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise this week for comment on the cyberattack investigation, only to discover that none of the senior Republicans had knowledge of the incident.
BREAKING: House GOP campaign committee says it was victim of “cyber intrusion” during 2018 campaign, has notified FBI – @AP https://t.co/YVJzV29YrF pic.twitter.com/AWnxJlp1oC
— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) December 4, 2018
NRCC officials claimed they did not disclose information of the cyberattack over risks of compromising their investigation.
“We don’t want to get into details about what was taken because it’s an ongoing investigation,” one senior official told Politico. “Let’s say they had access to four active [email] accounts. I think you can draw from that.”
Mercury Public Affairs was among several firms hired by NRCC to handle the committee’s response to the attack.
“The NRCC can confirm that it was the victim of a cyber intrusion by an unknown entity. The cybersecurity of the Committee’s data is paramount, and upon learning of the intrusion, the NRCC immediately launched an internal investigation and notified the FBI, which is now investigating the matter,” said Mercury Vice President Ian Prior, who is also a former member of the NRCC and former Department of Justice official.
BREAKING: The National Republican Congressional Committee suffered a major hack during the 2018 election. The GOP group “was the victim of a cyber intrusion by an unknown entity,” NRCC spokesman Ian Prior says – FNC
— Michael Moates ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@freedom_moates) December 4, 2018
“To protect the integrity of that investigation, the NRCC will offer no further comment on the incident,” Prior noted.
NRCC nor FBI officials could confirm when the FBI investigation begin, or if any suspects have been identified so far.
