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After hack, more data on Democrats hits the web

In a data dump that appears to be linked to an earlier hack of a fund-raising group, US Congress members' personal email addresses and phone numbers land online.

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The Democrats have been dogged by hacking and leaks during the presidential campaign. This past week was no exception.

The Democrats have been dogged by hacking and leaks during the presidential campaign. This past week was no exception.

 Erwin Wodicka/Getty Images

The Democratic Party's hacking woes continued this week, as personal phone numbers and email addresses of US Congress members wound up on the internet.

A person, or people, using the alias "Guccifer 2.0" dumped the data on a website on Friday and said it had been acquired in a computer breach of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a group that raises funds for Democratic members of the House of Representatives. That attack was revealed in late July.

"It's time for new revelations now," read a statement accompanying Friday's data dump, as reported by The New York Times. "All of you may have heard about the DCCC hack. As you see I wasn't wasting my time! It was even easier than in the case of the DNC breach."

Guccifer 2.0 was the alias used by the party or parties who earlier took credit for hacking the Democratic National Committee. That attack came to light in June, and emails apparently from the breach later appeared on WikiLeaks, just before the Democratic National Convention, leading to the resignation of the national committee's chairwoman.

US law enforcement agencies have linked the DCCC and DNC hacks to the Russian government. That's raised questions about whether the Russians are trying to influence the US presidential election. It's also created concern about the security of government computer systems, with some observers even wondering whether hackers could rig elections by tampering with voting machines.

The Russian government has denied involvement in the attacks. Asked about Friday's data dump, the Russian embassy pointed to a recent interview with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov. "Only spin doctors who see conspiracy theories everywhere could imagine that Russia is trying to push this election to any specific candidate by hacking into some servers," Ryabkov said in the interview. "In reality, this is simply impossible."

The DCCC did not respond to a request for comment.

The Times reported that the person or people claiming credit for the dump tweeted on Friday that more data would come and that a "major trove" of DCCC documents would be sent to WikiLeaks. "Keep following," read a post sent from a Twitter account that's since been suspended.

Update, August 16 at 12:15 p.m. PT: Adds comment from Russian embassy.