GOP nominee caught on tape inviting Russia to 'help' his campaign

In late July, The Daily Beast reported that Russian cyber operatives tried to hack Sen. Claire McCaskill and her campaign staff, though the attempt was unsuccessful.

Two Democratic candidates in California, David Min and Dr. Hans Keirstead, were also targeted by hackers during the state’s open primaries. Both candidates lost their races.

Notably, Keirstead was running in California’s 48th District, where he hoped to unseat Republican incumbent Dana Rohrabacher — a pro-Russia candidate who is often referred to as Putin’s favorite congressman.

And although she is not up for re-election in 2018, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was also targeted in an elaborate scheme involving hacking, hoax emails, and an impersonator attempting to get insider information on sanctions against Russia.

Meanwhile, Facebook recently reported that it had detected and interrupted a foreign influence operation targeting American voters.

Although it could not yet attribute the entire operation to Russia, at least one of the accounts it identified was known to be operated out of Russia’s Internet Research Agency.

Additional evidence of ongoing Russian interference was revealed late Monday night, when The New York Times reported that Microsoft had recently detected and seized several websites created by Russia’s military intelligence agency targeting conservative think tanks that split with Trump and took a tough posture toward Russia.

At a press conference in early August, five top national security officials warned of the ongoing threat, saying that Russia was engaged in election-related hacking and influence operations aimed at interfering in the 2018 midterms. Cybersecurity experts say individual political campaigns are most vulnerable to these activities.