The prevalence of Russian hackers in the 2016 Presidential election has sparked much controversy over the last four years but could these attacks have been prevented? In 2016 the Democratic National Committee’s server was hacked by the well know Russian hacker group, Fancy Bear, allowing them access to large amounts of data which they could change, remove or take for their own purposes. However, this information only came out after the election during the US Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence where the head of IT for the DNC, Yared Tamene, outlined the breach.
Surprisingly, this hack managed to fly under the radar of the FBI, who seemingly underplayed the seriousness or possibility of such a problem occurring. Even though Tamene had been in conversation with the FBI about such matters, these discussions clearly didn’t hold much gravity. Hopefully both parties have learned from their mistakes and a similar hack can be avoided during this highly competitive election.
