8 Oct 2016 12:17

Kremlin: Accusing Russian govt of hacking U.S. servers is "nonsense"

MOSCOW. Oct 8 (Interfax) - Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has described as "nonsense" the allegations that the Russian leadership is responsible for hacking U.S. organizations' servers and pointed out that the Kremlin website has regularly been subject to similar attacks from U.S. territory.

"This is some nonsense again! [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's website is attacked by dozens of thousands of hackers on a daily basis. A lot of attacks can be tracked to U.S. territory, but we don't blame the White House of Langley [CIA headquarters] each time," Peskov told Interfax on Friday night.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had claimed in a joint statement on Friday that the Russian government was responsible for directing attacks on e-mail servers of U.S. individuals and political organizations to interfere with the election campaign ongoing in the country.

"The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process," the statement said.

"Such activity is not new to Moscow - the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there," it said.

"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities," the statement said.