U.S. intelligence agencies have “high confidence” that the Russian government perpetrated a leak of Democratic National Committee documents, The New York Times reports. This new consensus, apparently reached through an investigation by the FBI and other intelligence agencies, supports a theory that Russian agents leaked DNC information in an attempt to sway American voters against the party. However, these agencies have also clarifed that they are not sure whether the DNC documents were obtained in a direct effort to influence election results, or whether they were obtained during one of the routine hacks Russia and many other governments commit.
An independent security research firm also concluded a Russian government hacker was behind the DNC leak, The Daily Beast reported Monday. The Virginia-based ThreatConnect firm found that a group of Russian hackers, rather than just one individual, had hacked the DNC servers.