The Trump campaign hacking scandal and leak resembles a repeat of 2016. This time, the media is reacting differently

This weekend Politico dropped an information bomb:An individual using only the name “Robert” provided the editorial staff with documents allegedly stolen from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Since then now we have learned that New York Times AND The Washington Post I also heard from the same person and received several stolen documents. The document dump has the characteristics of a hack and leak operation, which usually involves malicious hackers stealing confidential information and strategically revealing it to harm the goal of the hack. The FBI said it was investigating the hack. Trump himself he accused Iran’s government about the breach. Longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone said his email account was breached, which likely began the whole operation, based on anonymous people who spoke to The Washington Post.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because a nearly similar hack-and-leak operation before the US election happened before and will inevitably occur again. It’s value going back in time to the previous hack-and-leak operation to spotlight what we learned then and how those lessons apply now.

In the summer of 2016, a hacker who introduced himself as Guccifer 2.0 and described himself as a Romanian “hacker, manager, philosopher (and) woman lover” claimed to be behind the Democratic National Committee break-in. This got here as a surprise, as cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike he accused Russian intelligence agency behind the hack. In an ironic twist, Roger Stone, meanwhile, publicly disclosed was involved with Guccifer 2.0 and joined the hacker’s claims that he was attacking Democrats.

But because it turned out, after I began asking Guccifer 2.0 some specific questions in 2016, their mask quickly began to fallTwo years later, the FBI confirmed that Guccifer 2.0 was not the only Romanian hacker, but a person controlled by two agents working for the Russian military intelligence unit, the Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU. While I I pat myself on the backI also wish to be clear that in some ways it was easier for me to deal with Guccifer 2.0, his identity, and his motivations, than on the leaked documents, just because I used to be (and still am) a reporter covering cybersecurity moderately than politics.

At this point, and on this latest case, it’s unclear who “Robert” really is. However, early signs point to a repeat of the Guccifer 2.0 situation.

The day before the Politico report on the attack on Trump was published, Microsoft it was revealed that a hacking group supported by the Iranian government “sent a spear-phishing email in June to a high-ranking presidential campaign official from the compromised email account of a former senior adviser.” Microsoft didn’t say what the campaign was or name the “former senior adviser” who was targeted, but sources later said, The Washington Post AND Political that the FBI has been investigating the hacking of the Trump campaign since June.

IN latest report on wednesdayGoogle’s Threat Analysis Group, which studies hackers and government-backed threats, agreed with most of Microsoft’s assessment. Google said it had evidence that Iran-backed hackers were behind attacks on the personal email accounts of about a dozen people related to President Biden and former President Trump back in May.

To summarize: It appears that Iranian government hackers could have hacked Stone, used his email address to then goal and infiltrate the Trump campaign, stolen certain documents (to this point, we only learn about files related to the vetting process for Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance), and finally used someone named Robert to contact reporters in the hopes that they’d look into the leaked documents.

The difference from what happened in 2016 is how the media is presenting the whole story.

During this time, countless media outlets acquired Guccifer 2.0’s documents, and later also the stolen ones. from Hillary Clinton’s then campaign manager, John Podesta — and published stories that essentially reinforced the message the Russian government wanted the American public to deal with, namely allegations of corruption and abuse. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who wrote a 2016 book about the hacking campaigns, he told the Associated Press this week it was found that the media had distorted some of the leaks in 2016 in a way that hurt Clinton greater than it must have.

This time, initial coverage of the Trump campaign hack and leak focused on the hack and leak itself, moderately than what was leaked, a undeniable fact that disinformation experts have praised.

“Politico and (its reporter) Alex Isenstadt deserve a lot of credit for turning this story into a story about a (weak, it seems) foreign disinformation effort, rather than reporting on leaked Trump campaign documents themselves.” Thomas Rid saidprofessor at Johns Hopkins and someone who closely monitored 2016 Russian hacking and disinformation campaign

It is essential to notice that this might all change, perhaps if or when “Robert” decides to disclose something that the media deems more newsworthy. It is also essential to keep in mind that as my former colleague Joseph Cox said written a few years agowere many matters hackers leaky information that was in the public interest. The data from these hacks and leaks deserved to be discussed and reported. That could also be true this time, too.

Regardless, it is essential for journalists to offer the full context of hacking and leak operations, whether or not they are carried out by hackers working for governments attempting to undermine elections or specific presidential candidates, or by hacktivists with well-intentioned intentions.

When Politico asked the hacker how he obtained the documents, Robert supposedly said: “I suggest you do not inquire where I got them from. Any answer to that question will compromise me and also legally prevent you from publishing them.”

Perhaps Robert himself knows that this time the journalists have drawn conclusions.