U.S. Democratic Party congressional group confirms breach of computers

A congressional group under the U.S. Democratic Party confirmed Friday that its computers have been hacked in a way similar to the recent cyber attack on the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

The breach of the computers of the group, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), reportedly started last month, according to media reports.

"The DCCC can confirm that we have been the target of a cybersecurity incident," DCCC spokeswoman Meredith Kelly said in a statement.

Upon discovering the intrusion, the DCCC immediately took action and engaged with the cyber security company CrowdStrike to assist it in addressing this incident, she said.

"The investigation is ongoing," Kelly said. "Based on the information we have to date, we've been advised by investigators that this is similar to other recent incidents, including the DNC breach."

The news came one week after a number of emails of the DNC were published by hackers on the Wikileaks website, setting off a political storm within the Democratic Party.

The leaked emails showed that some officials of the DNC, who were supposed to remain neutral, were in fact working in favor of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton through conspiring to undermine Clinton's rival Bernie Sanders' campaign in the primaries.

In the past week, Sanders supporters held massive protests against the rigged system outside the venue of the Democratic National Convention held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The scandal also led to the resignation of the DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

It remained unknown how much and what kind of information about the DCCC has been breached, though media reports alleged that hackers may have obtained information about Democratic donors.

The DCCC is a group under the Democratic Party that is responsible for raising funds for Democratic candidates running for seats in both chambers of U.S. Congress. Endit