The FBI never examined the servers of the Democratic National Committee before determining they were hit by a Russian-backed cyberattack, BuzzFeed News reports.
And, six months after the FBI launched its investigation into the hacking of the DNC computer network, agents have still not asked for access to the servers, according to a committee spokesman, the website notes.
In fact, one U.S. intelligence official told BuzzFeed News, no U.S. government agency has run an independent forensic analysis on the system.
"The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the FBI's Cyber Division and its Washington (DC) Field Office, the Department of Justice's National Security Division, and U.S. Attorney's Offices, and it responded to a variety of requests for cooperation, but the FBI never requested access to the DNC's computer servers," Eric Walker, the DNC's deputy communications director said.
According to the website, the FBI relied on computer forensics performed by CrowdStrike, a third party tech security firm. The company determined in May of last year the DNC computer system was hit by Russian-linked hackers.
"CrowdStrike is pretty good," the intelligence official said. "There's no reason to believe that anything that they have concluded is not accurate."
And, he added, the outside firm was confident Russia was behind the hacks.
BuzzFeed News said it was unclear why the FBI didn't request access to the committee servers.
But three cybersecurity companies, who have worked on three major breaches recently, said it was "par for the course" for the FBI to do its own forensic research.
Meanwhile, The Hill reports the intelligence community is said to be handing over its final classified assessment of the hacking to President Barack Obama on Thursday. The White House has said it will provide the report to lawmakers as soon as possible.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.