PARIS FRANCE -The political campaign of Emmanuel Macron has been targeted by a highly coordinated and targeted computer attack.
The attack is surmised to me the work of Russian hackers with the intention of swaying the election towards the hard-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
The hack revealed several emails and also included many fake documents that were intended to escalate the level of voter manipulation.
SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/05/world/europe/france-macron-hacking.html
On the eve of the most consequential French presidential election in decades, the staff of the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron said late Friday that the campaign had been targeted by a “massive and coordinated” hacking operation, one with the potential to destabilize the nation’s democracy before voters go to the polls on Sunday.
The digital attack, which involved a dump of campaign documents including emails and accounting records, emerged hours before a legal prohibition on campaign communications went into effect. While the leak may be of little consequence, the timing makes it extremely difficult for Mr. Macron to mitigate any damaging fallout before the runoff election, in which he faces the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has pledged to pull France out of the euro and hold a referendum to leave the European Union.
In a separate story by The Independent, they stated that the media has been ordered by the French electoral commission to NOT AIR any of the damaging materials.
It may in fact be that the French are not going to be fooled by such actions as hacking, which may set a global trend AGAINST the perpetrators for meddling in foreign affairs.
SOURCE: THE INDEPENDENT UK: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-email-hack-leaks-election-marine-le-pen-russia-media-ordered-not-publish-commission-a7721111.html
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