FBI investigating whether Russian spies are behind massive security breach at The New York Times
Agent close to hack probe says Putin's spooks may have targeted journalists as part of campaign to undermine US
RUSSIAN spooks may have hacked email accounts and other data belonging to reporters at The New York Times newspaper, according to an unnamed US agent.
The FBI is looking into the cyber attacks on individual reporters at the paper believing that Russia may be behind the breaches, the person close to the investigation said.
It comes as agents are also probing whether Putin's spies were behind a leak of highly damaging Democratic Party emails.
They appeared to show an effort by senior party officials to stop Bernie Sanders winning the presidential nomination.
Last month's leak led to the resignation of Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The alleged New York Times hack is thought to have targeted specific journalists rather than the whole company, according to the anonymous FBI source who spoke to broadcaster CNN.
Eileen Murphy, a spokesperson for the paper, released a non-denial statement that avoided confirming the breach.
“Like most news organizations, we are vigilant about guarding against attempts to hack into our systems,” she said.
“There are a variety of approaches we take, up to and including working with outside investigators and law enforcement.
"We won’t comment on any specific attempts to gain unauthorized access to the Times.”
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Reports have also suggested Russian spies may be behind numerous cyber attacks on Washington think tanks.
These hacks are potentially damaging as they could reveal future policy decisions on matters of defence and national security.
Russia has also been blamed by the Hillary Clinton team for the embarrassing Democratic Party email leak -- which took place the day before the party's convention vote to nominate their presidential candidate.
Clinton's communications director Jennifer Palmieri said on Tuesday that while they "can't know for certain" that Russia leaked the emails, it was the strong suspicion of US investigators.
"We agree that it's important for people to know that this could be why it's happening", she said.
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