China and Russia suspected as Barack's and McCain systems hacked during US campaign
Saturday November 08 2008
Sophisticated hackers infiltrated the computer systems of Barack Obama and John McCain during the US presidential campaign and stole a "serious amount of files" in what appears to have been an intelligence-gathering operation carried out by Russia or China, it has emerged.
On discovering what they thought was a computer virus last summer, the Obama campaign were visited by agents from the FBI and Secret Service and told that their systems had been hacked.
"You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system," an FBI agent told them.
The secret service told the campaign that Mr McCain had also been targeted by a sophisticated campaign of hacking.
"Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese," reports said, adding that the FBI had assured Mr Obama that the attack had not been carried out by his political opponents.
The hack came to light hours after President Bush gave a speech voicing fears that enemies of the US could be planning to cause a national security crisis or a terrorist attack in the transition from his to Mr Obama's administration.
Today, Mr Obama is expected to continue the furious pace he set following Tuesday's election victory as he holds a summit with economic experts, and a press conference in Chicago.
Those attending the summit today include former presidential cabinet officials and major corporation executives.
Investor Warren Buffett was to participate by phone.
Yesterday, Mr Obama had telephone talks with President Sarkozy, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister and Gordon Brown, and completed the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief-of-Staff.
Spokesman Robert Gibbs, who is likely to be made White House press secretary, said: "It's important that everybody understands that this is not going to happen overnight.
Mr Obama travels to Washington to meet President Bush on Monday (© The Times, London)
- Tom Baldwin
