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 an FBI 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.
