Politics

Hackers Are Trying to Get Information on Presidential Candidates

May 18th 2016

U.S. officials say there is evidence that foreign hackers are trying to get information on the presidential candidates, a pattern that's continued through at least the last two presidential election cycles, the Associated Press reports.

The Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Wednesday morning at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. that the FBI and Homeland Security are working with campaigns to help them secure their information, according to NBC News.

Clapper also said that more spying threats are expected.

"We have already had some indications of that and a combination of DHS, FBI are doing what they can to educate both candidates of potential cyber threats," he said, according to NBC News. "I anticipate as the campaigns intensify we will probably have more of it."

Although Clapper was not specific about which presidential candidates were under threat, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has already faced hacking threats this election season. In December of 2015 hacking collective Anonymous declared war on Trump after he called for a ban on Muslim immigration to the U.S.

Calling it #OpTrump the collective took down one of the candidate's websites.

Hacking has happened in past elections as well. During the 2008 presidential election Chinese hackers successfully broke into President Barack Obama's campaign team's computer system and also took large amounts of information from the campaign team of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona, according to the Guardian.

Also, during the 2012 election, the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney were infiltrated by foreign hackers, NBC News reports.

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