Presidential campaigns target of foreign hackers: US intelligence chief

However, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, refrained from giving any specifics to such cyber-attacks

The presidential campaigns have become a target of cyber hacking from overseas, the US intelligence chief has said, warning that it is likely to intensified in coming weeks.

"We have already had some indications of that (website hacking). I anticipate as the campaigns intensify, we will probably have more of it," James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said yesterday, responding to a question at the Centre for Bipartisan Policy here.

However, he refrained from giving any specifics to such cyber-attacks, coming from multiple sources.

"The Russians and Chinese are far more sophisticated and could do real damage if so inclined. Then there are terrorist groups. Each has different objectives," he added.

"We're aware that campaigns and related organisations and individuals are targeted by actors with a variety of motivations - from philosophical differences to espionage - and capabilities - from defacements to intrusions," Brian Hale, DNI spokesman said later in the day.

Clapper said the DNI is in talks with the presidential campaigns along with the FBI and Department of Justice to keep them aware about such a potential threat.

Once the Democratic and the Republican parties nominate their presidential candidates, DNI is then tasked with providing them with a daily classified intelligence briefing.

"We have a long-standing practice of briefing each of the major candidates once they are officially designated, and that sort of shifts into higher gear in terms of detail once the president-elect is known," he said.

"So we have been doing this - the intelligence community has been doing this for many years. It is not designed to shape anybody's worldview. We brief as we normally would each of them, and they have to be exactly the same. And so we will do that again for this campaign, once the candidates are officially known for each party," Clapper said.