In a case of political espionage, an unknown "foreign entity" had hacked the entire computer systems of the US presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain this summer, triggering a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe.
In midsummer, the Obama campaign's computers were attacked by a virus. The Democratic campaign's technical experts spotted it and took standard precautions, such as putting in a firewall.
At first, the campaign figured it was a routine "phishing" attack, using common methods. However, the FBI and the Secret Service thought otherwise and notified the Obama campaign that they had been the target of sophisticated "foreign cyber-espionage," Newsweek reported.
"You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an FBI agent told the campaign. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system."
The Obama campaign chief David Plouffe was also told by the White House chief of staff Josh Bolten that the computer systems were targeted by the foreign entity.
"You have a real problem," Bolten told an Obama aide. "It's way bigger than you guys think and you have to deal with it."
This forced the Obama campaign's chief technology officer Michael Slaby to contact the FBI field agent who was running the investigation out of Los Angeles.
Slaby was told that the hackers had been moving documents out of Obama's system at a rapid rate. Potentially, Obama's entire computer network had been compromised.
Obama himself was briefed, and his personal laptop was examined and found not to have been hacked. The Obama campaign took steps to better secure its computer system, including encrypting any documents used by the policy and transition teams.
The Obama campaign then brought in a top tech-security firm to scrub its system. On August 18, an Obama official was summoned to FBI headquarters in Chicago for a briefing, only to be told that the White House had ordered the FBI not to give the briefing.
The Obama official asked why, and was told that three hours earlier the Feds had learnt that the McCain campaign had been compromised as well. The security firm retained by the Obama campaign was finally able to remove the virus, the report said.
On August 20, the Obama campaign got its briefing from the FBI and was told that its system had been hacked by a "foreign entity."
The official would not say which "foreign entity," but indicated that US intelligence believed that both campaigns had been the target of political espionage by some country or foreign organisation that wanted to look at the evolution of the Obama and McCain camps on policy issues, information that might be useful in any negotiations with a future Obama or McCain administration.
"There was no suggestion that terrorists were involved; technical experts hired by the Obama campaign speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese," Newsweek said.
The FBI assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political opponents.
A senior McCain official said that the campaign had been hacked and that the FBI had become involved. White House and FBI officials had no comment earlier this week, the report said.
