Chinese hackers breached the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) internal communications in July last year to discover how the US party was planning to address Taiwan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The RNC had previously called for a free-trade agreement with Taiwan in its 60-page platform from 2016, but last year the platform was cut down to 16 pages and made no mention of Taiwan.
The article referred to an excerpt from Alex Isenstadt’s upcoming book, Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power, which mentions the previously unreported breach.
Photo: Reuters
The Journal said it viewed an excerpt of the book, which is to be released next month, and verified the hack.
The security breach occurred as the RNC was preparing for its national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July last year, people familiar with the matter told the author.
Microsoft informed top party officials in early July that the hackers had access to the RNC e-mail system for months, the people said.
However, top RNC officials and the cochair of US President Donald Trump’s campaign, Chris LaCivita, did not alert the FBI of the hack, as they were concerned the information would be leaked to the media, sources said.
Parts of the US government were aware of the breach, a source familiar with the matter said.
Sources are unsure how big the security breach was or how many e-mails were accessed.
Chinese hackers have targeted US Democratic and Republican campaigns for decades, hoping to discover insights into the policies and personalities of incoming administrations, US intelligence officials told the Wall Street Journal.
For example, Chinese hackers breached the presidential campaigns of former US president Barack Obama and former US senator John McCain in 2008.
These hacks provide “the ability to map relationships between key political actors, and ... get a window into policy shifts or policy thinking and how that might play out if that target comes into power,” the Journal quoted Laura Galante, a top cybersecurity official for the administration of former US president Joe Biden, as saying.
“China firmly opposes and combats cyberattacks and cybertheft in all forms,” Chinese embassy in Washington spokesman Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇) told the paper.
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