Guccifer 2.0

About

Guccifer 2.0, not to be confused with the convicted Romanian hacker Guccifer, is a mysterious hacker of unknown identity who gained online notoriety in June 2016 after claiming responsibility for breaching the servers of at least two major committees within the United States Democratic Party, namely the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), that resulted in the massive leak of private e-mails and internal memos, as well as personal contact information of Democratic officials and lawmakers.

Online History

The "Donald Trump Report"

On June 15th, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for breaching the servers of the Democratic National Committee and released a document titled “Donald Trump Report,” a 237-page summary of opposition research against the Republican presidential candidate, via Gawker and The Smoking Gun, while refuting the cybersecurity experts' conjecture that the cyberattack was most likely carried out by hackers affiliated with the Russian government.

Democratic National Committee Email Leak

On July 22nd, 2016, Wikileaks and The Hill published a collection of nearly 20,000 internal e-mails hosted on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), as well as unofficial correspondences, that were exchanged among key staff members and members of the press between January 2015 and May 2016. Shortly after the release of the documents, Guccifer 2.0 issued a statement claiming responsibility for the leak, once again refuting the allegations of Russian involvement from several Democratic party officials.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Hack

On August 12th, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 released a new batch of sensitive account information and contact information of congressional members that he had allegedly acquired by hacking into the servers of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in late July.

More Democratic National Committee Document Leak

On September 13th, WikiLeaks released an additional batch of internal documents obtained from the Democratic National Committee's email servers, this time, identifying Guccifer 2.0 as the source of the documents. The leak consisted of over 670 megabytes of internal documents, including work and personal cell phone numbers and personal email addresses of top officials within the White House, as well as sensitive information about high-profile party donors and Federal Election Commission filings, among many others."

Alleged Clinton Foundation Hack

On October 4th, Guccifer 2.0 published an post on his website^[16] claiming to have hacked the server of the Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit humanitarian organization founded by former President of the United States Bill Clinton, along with an 860-megabyte file of "hundreds of thousands" of documents allegedly detailing sensitive information and donors' directory. Among the sample screenshots included in the post was a file directory which included a folder titled "Pay to Play."

Shortly after the hacker's post went live, the Clinton Foundation issued a press release denying Guccifer 2.0's claims, followed by a tweet^[17] from the foundation's president Donna Shalala.

"Once again, we still have no evidence Clinton Foundation systems were breached and have not been notified by law enforcement of an issue," a foundation official said. "None of these folders or files shown are from the Clinton Foundation."

In addition, as the public and journalists began the sleuthing process, many news outlets raised skepticism towards the validity of Guccifer 2.0's claim and the substantiality of the documents. The Hill^[18] reported that the hacker's claim appears to be a hoax based on a sample analysis of the documents, which consisted of donors' information that should be available as public records, spreadsheets of donors' information that didn't match up with the foundation's disclosed records, but closely resembled the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)'s contributors' list, as well as a spreadsheet authored by the DCCC’s deputy research director Kevin C. McKeon in 2009. Furthermore, The Hill and many other news sites^[19][20][21] reported that the documents were likely obtained from a previous hack on the DCCC in late July.

Identity

On March 22nd, 2018, The Daily Beast^[22] published an article titled "Exclusive: 'Lone DNC Hacker' Guccifer 2.0 Slipped Up and Revealed He Was a Russian Intelligence Officer." In the article, an instance in which Guccifer failed to activate a VPN client left a Russian intelligence headquarters IP address "in the server logs of an American social media company," citing an anonymous source "familiar with the government's Guccifer investigation." Additionally, the article noted that investigations into Guccifer 2.0 had been taken over by Robert Mueller. That day, the article reached the front page of the /r/politics,^[23] /r/technology^[24], /r/worldnews^[26] and /r/The_Mueller^[25] subreddits.

Indictment

On July 13th, 2018, 12 Russian Agents were indicted in connection with the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.^[27] The 12 officers were also alleged to be behind the online persona Guccifer 2.0.^[28]

The indictment also accuses an unnamed congressional candidate of attempting to contact Guccifer 2.0.^[29] It states:

"On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the US Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent,” reads an excerpt from the court filing."

Search Interest

External References