The Republican National Committee is denying its computer systems were breached by Kremlin-backed hackers.
On Tuesday evening, a spokesperson for the RNC slapped down reporting from Bloomberg that said members of the hacker group 'Cozy Bear' breached the political party's computer systems last week.
'Over the weekend, we were informed that Synnex, a third party provider, had been breached,' RNC Chief of Staff Richard Walters said in a statement. 'Our team worked with Microsoft to conduct a review of our systems and after a thorough investigation, no RNC data was accessed.'
The Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C. The RNC pushed back on a report out Tuesday that its computer systems were breached by Kremlin-linked hackers
Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Richard Walters said Tuesday night that 'no RNC data was accessed' after a Bloomberg report came out saying that the third-party company Synnex had been targeted by Kremlin-backed hacker group 'Cozy Bear'
'We will continue to work with Microsoft, as well as federal law enforcement officials on this matter,' Walters added.
'Cozy Bear' is tied to Russia's foreign intelligence service.
The group was previously accused of breaching the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election cycle.
It was also blamed for December's SolarWinds Corp. attack, which breached nine U.S. government agencies.
Bloomberg reported the Synnex connection, with the company saying in a press release that 'it is aware of a few instances where outside actors have attempted to gain access, through Synnex, to customer applications within the Microsoft cloud environment.'
The company Synnex had been breached, but the RNC's chief of staff said Tuesday that 'no RNC data was accessed'
'As our review continues, we are unable to provide any specific details,' Synnex's Michael Urban told Bloomberg News. 'As with any security issue, a full review of all companies, systems, third-party applications and related IT solutions must be completed before final determinations can be made.'
Bloomberg
