Clinton: Russia used cyber attacks on U.S. organizations

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Monday (September 26) said there was “no doubt” Russia has used cyber attacks on all sorts of U.S. organizations, while her rival Donald Trump said Islamic State was winning cyber war.

“We are seeing cyber attacks coming from states, organs of states. The most recent and troubling of these has been Russia. There’s no doubt now that Russia has used cyber attacks against all kinds of organizations in our country and I am deeply concerned about this,” Clinton said during the first 2016 presidential debate.

Trump disputed Clinton’s claims but said he reckoned the Islamic State was winning the war in cyber security.

“Whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don’t know because the truth is under president Obama we’ve lost control of things that we used to have control of,” he said.

“We came in with the Internet, we came up with the Internet and I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much when you look at what ISIS is doing with the Internet, they’re beating us at our own game, ISIS. So we have to get very tough on cyber and cyber warfare,” Trump added.

If the election were held today, Clinton would still defeat Trump, with an 88 percent chance of reaching the 270 electoral college votes needed, according to the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project, which is based on a weekly online tracking poll of more than 15,000 Americans.

Two other presidential candidates – Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein – were not invited to take part in the debate because neither had obtained at least 15 percent support in national polls, the threshold established to qualify.