Russian government hackers broke into RNC's computers last week: report

Around the same time criminal extortionist hackers in Russia executed a massive international ransomware attack demanding $70 million in bitcoin, Russian government hackers broke into computers at the Republican National Committee.

"The government hackers were part of a group known as APT 29 or Cozy Bear," Bloomberg News reports, citing people familiar with the matter. "That group has been tied to Russia's foreign intelligence service and has previously been accused of breaching the Democratic National Committee in 2016, and of carrying out a supply-chain cyberattack involving SolarWinds Corp., which infiltrated nine U.S. government agencies and was disclosed in December."

On Saturday an RNC spokesperson denied the attack, claiming there was "no indication the RNC was hacked or any RNC information was stolen."

Bloomberg calls the move "a major provocation to President Joe Biden, who warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about cyberattacks at a June 16 summit."

Biden has said he will take appropriate action if Putin continues to engage in criminal cyber warfare. Those attacks appear to have increased in recent weeks.