WASHINGTON — Perched behind government computers at a site in Northern Virginia, hacking experts are scanning the networks of Democratic presidential campaigns, searching for vulnerabilities and openings to inject malicious code. For weeks at a time, they’re hitting campaign officials with phishing emails not unlike those that Russian hackers used to infiltrate the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
The campaigns not only know about it — they’ve invited it, part of a sweeping effort by U.S. national security agencies to help campaigns of both parties protect themselves against cyberattacks, intelligence operations and physical threats ahead of the 2020 election. Those efforts come even while President Donald Trump, fighting for another term, continues to downplay the risk posed by foreign interference in U.S. elections.
As campaigns work to safeguard their websites, databases and email systems, the federal government has been providing defensive briefings to all the Democratic campaigns that will take them, U.S. and campaign officials tell NBC News.
The effort has involved the FBI, the Homeland Security Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all the U.S. spy agencies,
With the presidential candidates’ headquarters scattered across the country, local FBI field offices have made contact with the campaigns and the big political committees, providing counterintelligence briefings to those who want them.
In some cases, campaign officials said, the FBI has informed them of specific attempts already under way by foreign governments to hack their camp ..
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