CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday it was likely that hackers would continue to target political computer systems in the weeks leading up to the November presidential election.
Brennan discussed the cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee and state election systems during an interview with CBS News, saying that he "wouldn’t be surprised" if more breached information was leaked.
"I think there are capabilities that a number of our adversaries have–and again, I’m not just talking about nation states or other countries–I’m talking about individuals who may want to demonstrate that they’re able to hack into systems and release things for whatever their agenda might be, whether it be a political agenda or one that is just trying to undermine our system of democracy here," Brennan said.
Intelligence officials suspect that Russian government hackers were behind a series of cyber attacks targeting Democratic organization and staff. While Brennan refused to specially blame the Kremlin for the breaches, he pointed to Russia’s known history of breaking into U.S. political websites.
President Obama warned in July that it was possible Russian hackers would attempt to sway the U.S. election. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has maintained that the Kremlin was behind the DNC attacks in an attempt to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Russia has denied involvement in the attacks.