The hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0 leaked hundreds of megabytes of files allegedly stolen from the Clinton Foundation, but the organization’s representatives said there was no evidence of a data breach.
Guccifer 2.0 has taken credit for hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), from which he leaked numerous files. However, researchers believe Guccifer 2.0, who has claimed to be Romanian, is actually a persona used by Russia-backed threat actors.
In a post published on Tuesday on his WordPress blog, Guccifer 2.0 said he hacked a Clinton Foundation server and downloaded hundreds of thousands of documents from it. The more than 800 Mb of files store various types of information, including what appear to be donor lists.
“Hillary Clinton and her staff don’t even bother about the information security. It was just a matter of time to gain access to the Clinton Foundation server,” the hacker said.
However, Clinton Foundation President Donna E. Shalala said on Twitter that there is no evidence of a hack.
No evidence of a #Guccifer hack at @ClintonFdn, no notification by law enforcement, and none of the files or folders shown are ours.
— Donna E. Shalala (@DonnaShalala) October 4, 2016
While some of the leaked information could come from a Clinton Foundation server, many of the files appear to originate from earlier hacks for which Guccifer 2.0 took credit. For instance, one of the sample files published by the hacker was created by someone named “Kevin McKeon.” Until 2014, McKeon occupied various leadership roles at the DCCC.
Evidence uncovered by Ars Technica and others also suggests that many of the files come from the DCCC and not the Clinton Foundation.
This is not the first report of a breach at the Clinton Foundation. Bloomberg learned in June that the organization’s systems had been targeted by Russian hackers, but officials said they were not aware of a breach.
Security researchers believe the attacks on the U.S. Democratic Party were actually carried out by cyber espionage groups sponsored by the Russian government. One of these groups is known as Fancy Bear, APT28, Pawn Storm, Strontium, Sofacy, Sednit and Tsar Team.
Fancy Bear is believed to be responsible for, among others, the attacks on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and organizations investigating the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash in Ukraine.