The Winscosin Republican Party said hackers stole $2.3m worth of money from it’s effort to support President Donald Trump re-election.
According to Mr. Hitt, the campaign invoice was altered by hackers in order to steal this funds. The party’s invoices were altered in a way that when the invoices were paid, the funds didn’t go to the vendors.
According to him, it begun as a phishing attempt however, records show there was no data stolen.
The millions were taken from the Wisconsin Republicans’ federal account.
According to a BBC cyber security reporter’s analysis, the information security world is tense right now waiting and watching for cyber attacks that could affect the US election.
This type of attack was probably not on many people’s lists of expected hacks.
It sounds like an almost standard case of something called Business Email Compromise (BEC). Effectively the hackers have either gained access to or spoofed an email address to put themselves between the Wisconsin Republican party HQ and one of their suppliers. The party then transferred the money to the hackers instead of its campaign partner.
In many cases of BEC, banks are able to reverse the transaction and return at least some of the money to the victims. The Republican party will be hoping that this is what happens here.
The party contacted the FBI and agents are investigating the matter, Chairman Andrew Hitt said in a statement on Thursday.