DNC Incident Was a Phishing Exercise

What appeared to be another cyberattack aimed at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) this week turned out to be a simulated phishing exercise, according to Newsweek.

Lookout Security had alerted the DNC to a phony login page spoofing Votebuilder, a service used by party officials and campaigns, that had been discovered attempting to grab usernames and passwords to the database. DNC officials then reportedly contacted the FBI.

But DNC CISO Bob Lord has now confirmed that the alert spotted by Lookout was actually a phishing test, not a real attack attempt. "We, along with the partners who reported the site, now believe it was built by a third party as part of a simulated phishing test on VoteBuilder," Lord said in a statement. The test, which mimicked … attributes of actual attacks on the Democratic party's voter fil­e, was not authorized by the DNC, VoteBuilder nor any of our vendors. The party took the necessary precautions to ensure that sensitive data critical to candidates and state parties across the country was not compromised."

According to Newsweek, there is at least one report that the Michigan Democratic Party was the organization behind the simulation.

Read more here.