Alleged Russia-Linked Hackers Targeted Washington Think Tanks

An allegedly linked to Russia hackers group broke into servers of several Washington-based think tanks.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — A hackers group, allegedly linked to Russia, broke into servers of several Washington-based think tanks, the founder of US cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike said as cited by media.

CrowdStrike's founder and CEO, Dmitri Alperovitch, told the Defense One news website on Monday that a group dubbed COZY BEAR had attacked up to four think tanks, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and 10 staffers specializing in Russia.

According to CrowdStrike, COZY BEAR was one of the hacker groups responsible for the recent US Democratic National Committee (DNC) email hack.

In July, WikiLeaks published almost 20,000 pages of hacked emails that revealed top DNC officials deliberately worked to obstruct Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders' campaign in order to boost his then-rival Hillary Clinton's chances of becoming the party's presidential nominee.

After the emails were leaked, Clinton said that Russia was responsible for the hack as well as the publication of some unspecified DNC documents. The Democratic candidate, as well as her high-ranking party fellows have repeatedly alleged Russia engaged in the hack to benefit Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Both the Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry refuted the reports of Moscow's involvement in the hacking activities.